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

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. 

​

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 from the Indies in the seventeenth-century.

​

In 2025, conference organizers welcome academic proposals 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 Society  particularly invites papers that employ Las Casas as a heuristic lens for the critical interpretation of European expansionism and colonialism as well as to interrogate his views vis-à-vis the culture and ancestry of Indigenous people from America, Africa, and Asia. Moreover, due to the conference's location, organizers are also very interested in proposals that 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; merchant class; his critique of 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.

​

Dates: June 17th–21st  (Tuesday–Saturday) in 2025, Seville, Spain. 

Papers:  Spanish, Portuguese, and English are welcomed, whether presenting individually or as a panel of up to three. 

 

Submissions

Please use the link to the online form, which will require:

• Author(s): (maximum of three) including name(s), professional title(s), and affiliation

• E-mail and mailing addresses

• A title and proposal including possible relationship to conference theme(s) (250–300 words)

• Short biographical note (maximum 100 to 200 words).

​

*Note that the form does not save drafts by default, so take care to save your work elsewhere.