Ninel Valderrama Negrón (PhD Candidate in Romance Studies at Duke University) is awarded a 2020–21 Thoma Foundation Research & Travel Award in the amount of $17,534 to conduct research towards her dissertation The Failed Return of the Planet King: Transpacific Art During the Bourbon Dynasty (1739-1825). This dissertation examines paintings, sculptures, urban plans, and religious iconography that display a benevolent side of Spanish colonialism and unveil a rhetorical intention to resurrect a global empire in the final days of Spanish control in the Americas. Through archival research and digital humanities methodologies, Negrón’s goal is to reveal how these artworks claimed global attention.
| 2020 – 2021 | |
| Art of the Spanish Americas |