Martha Few

About

Professor Martha Few is an Associate Head of the Department of History and a Liberal Arts Professor of Latin American History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University. Her academic specialization focuses on colonial history in the Maya region, emphasizing Indigenous perspectives and experiences. Her research often explores themes related to medicine and public health, gender and sexuality, environmental history, and human-animal studies. Professor Few has authored several notable books, including 'Baptism Through Incision: The Postmortem Cesarean Operation in the Spanish Empire,' which received the Teaching Edition Prize from The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender, and 'For All of Humanity: Mesoamerican and Colonial Medicine in Enlightenment,' awarded honorable mention for the Bandelier-Lavrin Book Prize. She has also written 'Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala' and co-edited 'Centering Animals in Latin American History.' Her scholarly work has been recognized through fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Newberry Library, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Humanities Institute at Penn State. Currently, she is working on a new book titled 'Insects and the Making of the New World,' which examines human relationships with six insects, and is co-authoring a monograph on…

Research topics

• History
• Art
• Sociology
• Geography
• Ethnology

Selected publications

• Epidemics, indigenous communities, and public health in the COVID-19 era: views from smallpox inoculation campaigns in colonial Guatemala

  Journal of Global History · 2020-11-01 · 12 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article explores the tensions between well-intentioned humanitarianism and coercive colonialism during smallpox outbreaks in eighteenth-century Guatemala, when the state extended inoculation programmes to its predominant, culturally diverse Maya communities. Evidence from anti-epidemic campaigns shows public debates broadly comparable to the current COVID-19 crisis: debates about the measurably higher mortality rates for indigenous people and other marginalized groups; debates abou…

  PublisherDOI

• Baptism Through Incision

  Penn State University Press eBooks · 2020-04-22 · 4 citations

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In 1786, Guatemalan priest Pedro José de Arrese published a work instructing readers on their duty to perform the cesarean operation on the bodies of recently deceased pregnant women in order to extract the fetus while it was still alive. Although the fetus’s long-term survival was desired, the overarching goal was to cleanse the unborn child of original sin and ensure its place in heaven. Baptism Through Incision presents Arrese’s complete treatise—translated here into English for the first tim…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Lives and Deaths of Caged Birds: Transatlantic Voyages of Wild Creatures from the Americas to Spain, 1740s–1790s

  Ethnohistory · 2020-07-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This essay focuses on New World birds caught up in the eighteenth-century transatlantic trade with other living wild creatures, destined for imperial metropoles. Manuscript sources describing this trade, written by political officials, ships’ captains, doctors, naturalists, animal caretakers, and inspectors who cataloged their arrival to Spanish ports, interacted with the animals, tried to keep them alive aboard the ship, and determined their ability to withstand further transport to th…

  PublisherDOI

• :<i>Wasp</i>

  Isis · 2022-12-02 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Curing World of María García, an Indigenous Healer in Eighteenth-Century Guatemala

  University of Pittsburgh Press eBooks · 2021-09-14 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Rachel O'toole

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  18 shared

• Zeb Tortorici

  10 shared

• Marco Curátola Petrocchi

  Pontifical Catholic University of Peru

  9 shared

• Galen Brokaw

  9 shared

• Martha Chaik- Lin

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  9 shared

• Víctor Maqque

  Texas Christian University

  9 shared

• Rolena Adorno

  9 shared

• Vio Lence

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  9 shared

Awards & honors

• Teaching Edition Prize in 2021 from The Society for the Stud…
• Honorable Mention for the 2016 Bandelier-Lavrin Book Prize f…

Similar researchers at Pennsylvania State University

• Ronnie Hsiah-19
• Jacob Leeh-18
• Michael Kulikowskih-16