History Hub

HistoryHub

Connecting past and present

Ricardo Padrón is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia. His interests include the literature and culture of the early modern Hispanic world, particularly the various expressions of the Hispanic imperial imagination. In episode 3 of History Hub’s new podcast series – ‘Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra: conversations on the history of Portugal and Spain, 1415-1898‘ – Professor Padrón discusses Spanish attempts to represent and conquer the Pacific as part of the greater Spanish imperial imagination in the sixteenth century with series host Dr Edward Collins.

Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra is funded by UCD Seed Funding and supported by UCD School of History. The series editor is Mike Liffey (Real Smart Media).

Ricardo Padrón: America, the Pacific, and Asia in the Imperial Imagination, 1513-1609


Ricardo Padrón 

Ricardo Padron

Ricardo Padrón is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia. He holds a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia, an MA in Divinity from the University of Chicago, and an MA and Ph.D. in Romance Languages from Harvard University. His first book, The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature and Empire in Early Modern Spain, was published in 2004 by the University of Chicago Press. Inspired by the work in contemporary critical geography, the book examines both maps and literary works from sixteenth-century Spain in the light of the changing conceptualizations of space and rationalizations of empire. His current work focusses on Spanish interest in Pacific and Asia in the wake of the Encounter with the Americas. He has also published on the poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega, Fernando de Herrera, and Luis de Góngora, as well as on the mapping of imaginary worlds throughout the modern period. His work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spanish Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States Universities, and the University of Virginia’s School of Arts and Sciences.

For more information on Professor Pardon’s work go to virginia.academia.edu/RicardoPadron

Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra

This new History Hub podcast series features interviews with experts in the areas of Portuguese and Spanish history, from the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries in 1415 to the end of Spanish dominion in America in 1898. The interviews, conducted by historian Dr. Edward Collins, cover a range of topics on the domestic and overseas histories of both nations, which include, among others: the Portuguese explorations of Africa and Asia, Spanish navigation and settlement in America, the church in Portugal and Spain, monarchy and intermarriage in the Iberian kingdoms, natural science and mapping in America, the role of nautical science, Irish historical relations with Portugal and Spain, and imperial competition in Europe and overseas. The interviewees comprise a number of established and renowned academics, as well as up-and-coming researchers from universities and institutions worldwide.

This History Hub series is funded by UCD Seed Funding and supported by UCD School of History. Series editor is Mike Liffey (Real Smart Media).

Download series episodes on iTunes or listen via Soundcloud. historyhub.ie/kingdom-empire-and-plus-ultra

Image: detail from Maris Pacifici by Abraham Ortelius. This map was published in 1589 in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. It was not only the first printed map of the Pacific, but it also showed the Americas for the first time. Source: Abraham Ortelius [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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