Conference 2028
Rethinking Latin America and the Caribbean in the Light of Bartolomé de las Casas 
Historical Memory, Legal Reasoning, and Imagining Collective Identities
Late May -  Early June 2025, Bogotá, Cololmbia

Conference Theme

This sixth conference is part of a series begun in 2016 with the establishment of an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars dedicated to Lascassian Studies. Since then, these gatherings have brought together specialists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to discuss the life, thought, and legacy of Bartolomé de las Casas.

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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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Thanks to the support of:

San Isidoro Escuela de Teología | Providence College
Boston University | RefoRC | Universidad Internacional de Sevilla

Organizers

David T. Orique, O.P., Ph.D. | Rady Roldán-Figueroa, Th.D. | Andrew L. Wilson, Ph.D.

Mario Ruiz Sotelo, Ph.D. | M. Cristina Ríos Espinosa, Ph.D. | Vanina M. Teglia, Ph.D.

Paola A. Uparela Reyes, Ph.D.

Past Conferences

First Conference, 2016

Third Conference, 2022

Second Conference, 2019