Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: First Encounters

First Encounters

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How do you decipher history when there isn't anything written down?

Claudia Rogers and Nandini Das talk to John Gallagher about up-ending historical stories and look back to the conquest of Cortés who fought the Battle of Otumba on 7 July 1520.

How should we mark anniversaries like the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in America or of Cortés and European settlers in Mexico? Is this a "first encounter" - and how do you decipher history when there isn't anything written down? Claudia Rogers compares her researches into Mexican history with Nandini Das, who has been re-reading the accounts written by John Rolfe of his marriage to Pocahontas and looking at what we gain when we flip the narrative and see from the point of view of indigenous people. Hosted by New Generation Thinker John Gallagher from the University of Leeds. 

Professor Nandini Das is Project Director for Tide: http://www.tideproject.uk/ 
Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England c1550- 1700 is an ERC funded project.
Claudia Rogers currently teaches at the University of Leeds, where she completed her PhD, and continues her connection with the University of Sheffield as an Honorary Research Fellow.
You can view the Lienzo de Tlaxcala online http://www.mesolore.org/cultures/synopsis/3/Nahua 

This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation.
New Generation Thinkers is an annual scheme to showcase academic research in radio and podcasts. You can find more information on the Arts and Humanities Research Council website https://ahrc.ukri.org

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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