Deconstructing the Enlightenment in Spanish America

Adam Sharman is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Nottingham, UK. His books include Tradition and Modernity in Spanish American Literature, Otherwise Engaged: After Hegel and the Philosophy of History, and the co-edited 1812 Echoes: The Cadiz Constitution in Hispanic History, Culture and Politics.

• 1. Introduction: How Not to Write the History of the Spanish American Enlightenment.- 2. Science: Three Degrees of Modernity: The 1735 Franco-Hispanic Expedition to Quito and the question of universal science.- 3. History: Conjectures on Commerce and the “Stages of Civilisation”: Philosophical Histories of America.- 4. Periodical Press: Faith and Knowledge in the Mercurio Peruano.- 5. Law: Prologue to Revolution: Mariano Moreno Translates Rousseau.- 6. Literature: The Idle Noble and the Noble Citizen: El periquillo sarniento and the Invention of the Mexican Individual.- 7. Conclusion.