Profile

Derek Burdette completed his PhD in Art History and Latin American Studies from Tulane University in 2012.  Before joining the University of Oregon, Burdette served as visiting faculty at Pennsylvania State University (2013-2014) and Swarthmore College (2014-2016), where he taught courses on the art history and history of Latin America, as well as the relationship between art and imperialism in the early-modern world.  His current book project, Miraculous Celebrity: The History of Wonder-Working Images in Baroque Mexico City, examines the role that miraculous imagery played in Mexico City during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The book demonstrates the importance of miraculous imagery in the life of the colonial capital by analyzing ritual processions held in moments of crisis, the circulation of printed and painted copies of powerful images, and the politics of patronage underpinning local cults.  

Publications

“Divinity and Decay: The Narrative of Miraculous Renovation and the Repair of Sacred Images in Colonial Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Review 25, no. 3 (2016): 351-370.

“Reparations for Christ Our Lord: Devotional Literature, Penitential Rituals, and Sacred Imagery in Colonial Mexico City,” in Sensuous Suffering: Pain in the Early Modern Visual Art of Europe and the Americas, edited by Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Heather Graham (Brill, Forthcoming). 

Selected Courses Taught

ARH 199        Latin American Arts

ARH 399        Arts of the Ancient Americas

ARH 399        Arts of Colonial Latin America

ARH 399        Spanish Golden Age Art

ARH 399        Aztec Art

ARH 399        Mexican Manuscripts

ARH 4|507      The Connected Globe: Art, Politics and Exploration

ARH 4|510      The Art of Empire: Inca, Aztec, Spanish

ARH 4|510      Art and the Colonization of Mexico

ARH 4|510      Art, Colonialism and Decolonization

ARH 607        Art and Ritual