Biography

In March 2014 I completed my PhD from the History department at Columbia University in New York. The dissertation, titled “From the Chinese Guan to the Mexican Chocolatero : A Tactile History of the Transpacific Trade, 1571-1815,” follows Chinese porcelains from their point of production in China to their trade in the port of Manila, and on to their consumption and appropriation in colonial Latin America. The project investigates the formation of an early modern trade network and demonstrates that such networks developed from an interaction between global material forces and local histories and contingencies. The methodology also provides details about the movement and transfer of aesthetics in the early modern period.
Before coming to the EUI I was a fellow at the Getty Research Institute as a part of their scholar year “Connecting Seas: Cultural and Artistic Exchange.” There I was able to finish my dissertation and further explore the use of visual and material sources for writing a history of long distance trade. While at the EUI I will work on preparing my dissertation for publication and begin a new project on the trade of Asian textiles to colonial Latin America.
My research and teaching interests include global history, material culture studies, colonial Latin American history, East Asian history and art history. I have been a teaching assistant for courses on World Migration, Gender and Empire and Colonial Latin American History.