Edward Anthony Polanco

Edward Polanco, Assistant Professor and Director of the Indigenous Studies program

_{Department of History

428 Major Williams Hall, 220 Stanger Str.

Blacksburg, VA 24061

polanco@vt.edu}

Dr. Edward Polanco is a Kuskatanchanej scholar of Mesoamerica. Although he was born in Los Angeles, CA, his ancestors are from Kuskatan (Western and Central El Salvador) and his parents fled their homeland due to political violence and instability. Dr. Polanco is committed to amplifying and centering Indigenous voices and perspectives in his research, his classroom, and on Virginia Tech’s campus. To achieve this, he works closely with the Latinx and Native communities on campus, and more broadly in the US and Latin America. He also serves as the Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at Virginia Tech which oversees the American Indian Studies Minor.

Dr. Polanco is working on a book manuscript titled In Cintli/Ne Sinti: Maize and the Nahua World from Mexico to Central America which explores the multifaceted reciprocal relationship Nahuas have had with Zea mays since time immemorial. Maize is a gift, pahtli (salubrious material), sustenance, and a center of ceremony that shapes Nahua identity and resilience throughout Mesoamerica.

His first book, Healing Like Our Ancestors: The Nahua Tiçitl, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Central Mexico; 1535-1660 (University of Arizona Press) examines healing ceremonial specialists among 16th and 17th-century Nahua people (Indigenous groups with diverse communities in Mexico and El Salvador) in Central Mexico. Dr. Polanco carefully analyzes the different healing tasks women and men had in their communities, he also unpacks the importance of women as titiçih (healing specialists), and he unearths how Spanish authorities attacked Native healers as they attempted to evangelize and hispanize Indigenous populations in New Spain (today known as Mexico and Central America).

He has published on Indigenous healing knowledge, and gendered understandings of the human body. Various fellowships and institutions have funded Dr. Polanco’s work, including the Fulbright-García Robles research grant, FLAS summer and AY fellowships, and a Newberry Library National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship. For more information and updates, please visit Professor Polanco's personal website.

Dr. Polanco’s teaching interests include Native history, Latin America, Mexico, El Salvador, Mesoamerica, sorcery, race, gender, and class. He has introduced various new courses to Virginia Tech that challenge students to think about the past from Indigenous perspectives.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

Ethnohistory
Colonial Mexico
Abya Yala (Latin America)
Colonialism
El Salvador
Native History
The Nahua world

Education

Ph.D. in History with a minor in Anthropology, The University of Arizona
M.A. in History, University of California, Riverside
B.A. in History, University of California, Riverside

Professional Roles

Department of History Diversity and Inclusion Committee Member
Department of History Undergraduate Committee

Awards and Honors

Human Dimensions of Infectious Disease mini-grant, Center for Emerging, Zoonotic and Arthropod-borne Pathogens
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Research Grant
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Diversity Award, Virginia Tech, 2023
Presidential Principles of Community Individual Award, 2021
Dr. Maria Teresa Velez Diversity Leadership Scholarship, The University of Arizona

Publications

Journal Articles

Polanco, Edward. “Tiçiyotl and Titiçih: Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Nahua Healing, Diagnosis, and Prognosis.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Oxford University Press. Article published October 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.792.

Polanco, Edward Anthony. "“I Am Just a Tiçitl”: Decolonizing Central Mexican Nahua Female Healers, 1535–1635." Ethnohistory 65, no. 3 (2018): 441-463.doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-4451410

Polanco, Edward Anthony. “‘The Chamber of Your Virginity does not have a Price’: The Scientific Construction of the Hymen as an Indicator of Sexual Initiation in Eighteenth-Century Spain.” Footnotes: A Journal of History 1, 2017: 67-88.

Digital Scholarship

Polanco, Edward Anthony. “Healing among Nahua Communities.” Mexicolore, May 31, 2022. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/healing-among-nahua-communities

Polanco, Edward Anthony. “Oscillating and Depreciating: Early Modern Spanish Views of Unsanctioned Female Healers.” Nursing Clio, January 5, 2021. https://nursingclio.org/2021/01/05/oscillating-and-depreciating-early-modern-spanish-views-of-unsanctioned-female-healers/.

Polanco, Edward Anthony. “Archivo General De La Nación: Mexico's Black Palace.” H-Net, February 3, 2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/23910/blog/research-corner/5812320/archivo-general-de-la-naci%C3%B3n-mexico%E2%80%99s-black-palace.

Fellowships, Grants, and Sponsored Research

Newberry Library National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship, 2021-22
American Indian and Indigenous Community Center Faculty Fellow, VT 2020-21
Juneteenth Scholar, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, VT 2020
New Faculty Mentoring Project Grant, Office of the Provost, VT 2020
Niles Research Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, VT 2019
International Initiative Small Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, VT 2018 & 2019
International Travel Grant for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, VT 2019
Fulbright-García Robles Research Grant for Mexico, US Department of Education (2015-16)