Professor of History
Email: Susan.Deeds@nau.edu
Office phone: (928) 523-6210
Office LA 210
Research and Teaching Interests
My teaching areas include the colonial and modern history of Latin America, with special emphasis on Mexican ethnohistory and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. My research examines the effects of Spanish colonialism on indigenous peoples of northern Mexico, focusing on groups in Chihuahua and Durango who came under the purview of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. My research and graduate teaching emphasize how colonial and national powers in Latin America have attempted to impose their projects for domination as well as how these hegemonic processes have been contested by indigenous peoples, blacks, peasants, women, and other groups. I am also interested in how ethnic, gender, and class identities and relationships evolve in situations where global power and local culture/popular culture/religion/political economy interact.
List of Courses Taught
History of Colonial Latin America; History of Latin America since Independence; History of Mexico; History of the Mexican Revolution; History of the U.S.-Mexico Border; Contemporary Latin America; 20th Century Latin American Revolutions; History through Film; Comparative Frontiers in Latin America; Culture, Ethnicity and Identity in Mexico and the Borderlands; Contested Hegemonies in Latin America
Curriculum Vitae
You can view my full CV as a webpage,
or download it as a PDF file.
List of Recent Publications
Defiance and Deference in Colonial Mexico: Indians under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya (University of Texas Press, 2003).
With Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman, The Course of Mexican History, 8th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
"Legacies of Resistance, Adaptation, and Tenacity: History of the Native Peoples of Northwest Mexico," in Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod, eds., The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol. II: Mesoamerica, part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 44-88.
"Como historiar con poca historia y menos arqueología: Clasificación de los acaxees, xiximes, tepehuanes, tarahumaras y conchos," in Marie Areti Hers and José Mirafuentes Galván, eds., Nómadas y sedentarios en el norte de México:Homenaje a Beatriz Braniff (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2000), 381-391.
"Resistencia indígena y vida cotidiana en la Nueva Vizcaya: Trastornos y cambios étnico-culturales en la época colonial," in Claudia Molinari and Eugeni Porras, eds., La identidad y los pueblos étnicos en la Sierra Tarahumara (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2002).
“Brujería, género e inquisición en Nueva Vizcaya,” Desacatos: Revista de Antropología Social, no. 10, 2003, 30-47.
“Pushing the Borders of Latin American Mission History,” Latin American Research Review, 39:2 (June 2004), 211-220.
“Subverting the Social Order: Gender, Power, and Magic in Nueva Vizcaya,” in Ross Frank and Frank de la Teja, eds., Social Control on New Spain’s Northern Frontiers: Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 95-119.
“New Spain, Viceroyalty of,” Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450,Thomas Benjamin, ed., 3 vols. (New York: Thomson Gale, 2006), II: 846-50.
“Los tepehuanes en misiones jesuitas: cambios étnicos y culturales en los siglos XVII y XVIII,” in Chantal Cramaussel and Sara Ortelli, eds., La Sierra Tepehuana: Asientamientos y movimientos de población (Zamora, Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán and Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, 2006), 219-230.
“Hechicería en el Norte colonial de México: Reflexiones sobre género y metodología,” Alicia Mayer, ed., Mujeres e historia: Homenaje a Josefina Muriel (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2008), 81-102.
List of Awards and Honors
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 1993-1994; Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Mexico, 1994; Andrew W. Mellon Travel Grant, Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University, 1999; Northern Arizona University Organized Research Grants, 1999, 2000; Northern Arizona University Teacher-Scholar Award, 2002; Distinguished Professor, College of Arts & Sciences, 2002, Thomas F. McGann Prize for Best Book in Latin American History, 2004; Edwin Liewen Prize for Teaching, 2004; Phi Kappa Phi NAU Scholar of the Year, 2008.
List of Recent Professional Service (Selected)
NAU: Associate Chair, History Department, 2001-2002, Coordinator of History Graduate Studies, 2002-2003, Chair, Arts & Sciences College Tenure and Promotion Committee, 2002-2003
Extramural: Evaluator, Ford Foundation Minority Dissertation and Post-Doctoral Fellowships, Spring 1999, and National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowships for University and College Teachers, Summer 2000.Chair, Mexican Studies Committee/Borderlands Studies Committee, Conference on Latin American History, 1994-1996, 2001-2003, respectively. Secretary, Board of Directors, Mexico-North Research Network, 1998-2007; Executive Committee, American Society for Ethnohistory, 2005-2007; Chair, Bolton-Kinnaird Prize Committee, Western Historical Association, 2007; Chair, Lewis Hanke Prize Committee, Conference on Latin American History, 2006-2007;Vice President & Program Chair, Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies, 2007-2008; North American Coordinator, XIII Reunion of Mexican, United States, and Canadian Historians, Mexico, 2010; Member, Elinor Melville Prize Committee for Latin American Environmental History, Conference on Latin American History, 2008-2010.