Conference 2025
From the Indies to Seville
Las Casas and the Renovation of Humanism
17-21 June 2025, Seville, Spain

Conference Venue and Lodging Details

• Conference Duration: June 17–21, 2025​

• Pickup of Conference Materials and Check-In:

  • When: June 17, 2 PM.

  • Where: Facultad de Teología San Isidoro

    • Address: Cardenal Bueno Monreal 43, 41013 Sevilla, Spain​​​

      • From Sant Justa train station, take bus 1​​​

    • Telephone: +34954237439

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• ​Check In to Lodgings

  • When: June 17, 2025, 4 PM

  • Where:  ​Seminario Metropolitano de Sevilla

    • Address: Adjacent to the Facultad de Teología San Isidoro (above), Calle Arzobispo Juan José Asenjo

• Check Out of Lodgings

  • When: Before June 21, 2025, 4 PM​​

NB: Participants are responsible for securing transport to and from the conference venue.​​

The seminary is only open to us from the 4 PM on June 17th, with checkout by 4 PM June 21st. If you arrive earlier or depart later, you will need to secure your own lodging.

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Lodging and Meal (Seminario) information

• Clothes washing facilities are available.

• Seminary rules require residents to return before 12 AM; entry is not allowed after midnight.

• We ask participants honor our hosts hospitality by sharing the midday meal (2 PM) with us at the Seminary.

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Academic Program (linked)

PDF

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1. On the schedule, please attend to the starting time. Most panels will be 75 minutes, with presentations limited to 18 minutes. This will leave roughly 15' minutes questions at the end of the time period.

2. You will have access to a projector and screen. Please bring any hardware needed for connecting your computer or device.

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Conference Theme

The newly-established Bartolomé de Las Casas Society (Societas Lascasiana) is pleased to announce the fifth international conference organized under the theme: “From the Indies to Seville: Las Casas and the Renovation of Humanism.”

The first conference, “Bartolomé de Las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion,” held in 2016 inaugurated an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars, leading in turn to the publication of a critically acclaimed volume. The second conference (2019) produced an equally impressive work (2023) and a third volume—from the 2023 gathering—is in preparation. In each case, scholars addressed this complex and controversial figure, his epoch, and legacy. 

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The fifth conference recognizes Seville’s importance for colonial Latin America as a significant hub for commerce and the circulation of ideas. Importantly, the port city was both Las Casas’s birthplace and the location from which Catholic missionaries departed for the New World. Among them the first Dominicans to go to the Indies in 1510, and those to land in New Spain in 1526—a landmark event soon to celebrate its 500th anniversary. Moreover, Seville played a significant role in the transatlantic circulation of people, goods, and minerals extracted from the Indies, including much of the global supply of silver in the seventeenth-century.

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Our 2025 conference will feature panels related to the life, labor, and legacy of Bartolomé de Las Casas—especially those exploring the theme: “Las Casas and the Renovation of Humanism.” In addition, the presenters will share research using Las Casas’s work as a heuristic lens for the critical interpretation of European expansionism and colonialism, and interrogating his views vis-à-vis the culture and ancestry of Indigenous people from America, Africa, and Asia. Moreover, due to the conference's location, several presentations will address Sevillian dimensions—social, cultural, intellectual, economic, or political—of Las Casas’s career. Other themes of interest include: the Reconquista of Iberia; the invasion of the Indies; Las Casas and instances of Indigenous resistance; Las Casas and lay and religious women, including beatas; Inquisition and treatment of Protestants, crypto-Jews, Conversos and Moriscos; Las Casas’s participation and perspective on mercantile and commercial projects, banking, and finance; Las Casas as archivist, editor, historian, scholastic, humanist, utopist, and activist; the Controversia of Valladolid, past and present; Las Casas’s linguistic, legal, philosophical, and theological education and legacy.

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