Chase Caldwell Smith
Chase Caldwell Smith
PhD Candidate & Teaching Associate in History
Email: chasesmith@ucla.edu
Personal WebsiteBiography
Chase is a historian of religious knowledge encounters between European missionaries and Nahua peoples in central Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using textual, visual, and material evidence, Chase explores why and how the production, circulation, and negotiation of knowledge in the religious sphere was a major concern in early colonial society between the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Drawing on sources in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Latin, Chase’s dissertation sits at the crossroads of colonial Latin American history, ethnohistory, Ibero-American art history, and studies of early modern global Catholicism. His broader interests include religion in the early modern Iberian empires, knowledges produced in missionary encounters, relationships between “images” and “words” in early modern religious conversion, and conversion narratives and religious self-fashioning. He also has a longstanding interest in the early modern Spanish transpacific, and in the “hybrid” people, images, and objects that circulated between colonial Latin America and Iberian Asia.
Chase holds a BA in History from Cambridge (double first class honors), an MSt in Global and Imperial History from Oxford (distinction), and an MA in History from UCLA. He has held fellowships and grants from the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, the UCLA History Department, the UCLA Latin American Institute, the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, the California Rare Books School, the Clarendon Fund at the University of Oxford, and the Conference on Latin American History. He has taught undergraduate sections in survey courses on colonial Latin American History, modern Western civilization, medieval and early modern world history, and the early modern history of science.
Beyond his studies, Chase has worked as producer and presenter for the Global History Podcast, a digital humanities project dedicated to sharing global approaches to the early modern period. He has co-organized conferences and museum tours as an officer of the UCLA Medieval and Early Modern Students Association, and worked as Graduate Coordinator of the cross-area studies UCLA Pacific World Research Network. He is a candidate for the Graduate Certificate in Early Modern Studies and the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities at UCLA, and is also working toward the Professional Certificate of Completion in Rare Books and Manuscripts at the California Rare Books School. He is a volunteer transcriber of sixteenth-century archival material pertaining to indigenous slavery and freedom for the public digital humanities project, Native Bound, Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery.
Subfield
colonial New Spain; early modern global Spanish and Portuguese empires; colonial Latin American art history; Nahuatl colonial literature; missionary translation; early modern global Catholicism
Research
Master’s Dissertation: ‘“Orientalism from Within”? Gender, Self-Fashioning, and Knowledge in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia, c. 1558–1623’
Undergraduate Dissertation: ‘The Representation of Sacred Places in the relaciones geográficas of New Spain, 1577 – 1586’
Publications
Smith, C. C., “Book Review: Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines,” Hispanic American Historical Review 104/3 (2024): 518-520.
Smith, C. C., “James R. Scobie Award Reports: Chase Caldwell Smith, UCLA,” Conference on Latin American History Fall Newsletter, 59/2 (2023): 21-22.
Rees, P.C. and Smith, C.C., ‘Conference Report: BSHS Postgraduate Conference’, Viewpoint: Magazine of the British Society for the History of Science, 116 (2018), [http://www.bshs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Viewpoint116_ONLINE.pdf], pp. 12-13.
Smith, C.C., ‘Review: Geographies of World History Graduate Conference: University of Cambridge, September 2017’, Global Histories: A Student Journal, 4/1 (2018), [https://www.globalhistories.com/index.php/GHSJ/article/view/173/101], pp. 207-10.
Awards & Grants
Research Grants and Fellowships
2024 The Bancroft Library Summer Study Award, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
2024 Princeton University Library Research Grant, Friends of the Princeton University Library
2023 The James R. Scobie Award, The Conference on Latin American History
2023 Summer Mentorship, Graduate Certificate Program in Early Modern Studies, UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies
2023 2023 Research Travel Award, UCLA History Department
2022 LAI Graduate Student Summer 2022 Research Grant, Latin American Institute, UCLA
2021, 2022 Fellowship, Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program, Graduate Division, UCLA (declined)
2017-18 Clarendon Fund Scholarship, University of Oxford
2016 Award, Michelle Ong Travel Fund, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge (declined)
2016 Grant, Tutors’ Donation Fund, Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge
Language Training
2024 Department of Education Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Scholarship (Nahuatl), 2024 Summer Term, Center for Latin American Studies, The University of Utah
2023-24 FLAS Fellowship Award, Academic Year 2023-2024 (Nahuatl), Latin American Institute, UCLA
2022-23 FLAS Fellowship Award, Academic Year 2022-2023 (Indonesian), Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), UCLA
2022 FLAS Fellowship Award, Summer 2022 (Indonesian), CSEAS, UCLA
2021-22 FLAS Fellowship Award, Academic Year 2021-2022 (Indonesian), CSEAS, UCLA
2021 Indonesian Studies Small Grant (Indonesian), CSEAS, UCLA
2021 Tuition Scholarship (Indonesian), Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2021 Research & Study Travel Grant (Early Modern Dutch Reading & Palaeography, University College, London), Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, UCLA
2018 Grant for Language Study (Portuguese), Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Professional Development
2024 Research & Study Travel Grant (funding to present a paper at the American Society for Ethnohistory 2024 Annual Meeting, Fargo, ND), CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, UCLA
2024 Travel Aid, American Society for Ethnohistory (funding to present a paper at the American Society for Ethnohistory 2024 Annual Meeting, Fargo, ND)
2024 Full-Tuition Scholarship, California Rare Book School, UCLA (funding for the 1-week CalRBS course, “El libro antiguo en México: historia, análisis y estudio moderno, Ciudad de México, México,” Summer 2024)
2024 LAI Graduate Student Summer 2024 Research Grant, Latin American Institute, UCLA (funding towards the 1-week CalRBS course, “El libro antiguo en México: historia, análisis y estudio moderno, Ciudad de México, México,” Summer 2024)
2024 Graduate Student Scholarly Conference Travel Award, Department of History, UCLA (funding to present a paper at the 2023 Sixteenth Century Society Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD)
2023 Travel Stipend, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection (funding toward attending the 2-week summer workshop, “Missionary Manuscripts in Mesoamerican Languages,” held at Princeton University Library, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Library of Congress, Summer 2023)
2022 UCLA Doctoral Student Travel Grants for Conferences, Professional Development and Off-Campus Research (DTG), Graduate Division, UCLA (funding toward the 1-week California Rare Books School course, “History of the Renaissance Book,” Summer 2022)
2021 Susan M. Allen California Rare Book School Fellowship in History of the Book, California Rare Book School, UCLA (funding for the 1-week CalRBS course, “Illustrated Scientific Books in Early Modern Europe,” Summer 2021)
2018 Postgraduate Bursary (conference travel grant), British Association for South Asian Studies
2018 Butler Eyles Grant (conference travel grant), British Society for the History of Science
2015 Joan & Leonard Gluckstein Memorial Award, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (travel grant supporting work as a research assistant on a 4-week undergraduate geographical research project in Peru that focused on gendered water use and management)
Conference Presentations
Conference & Workshop Organization
2024 Co-organizer with Patrick Morgan and Sofía Yazpik of a graduate student conference, “Thinking with Materiality in the Early Global World,” UCLA Medieval & Early Modern Students Association, sponsored by the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies. Los Angeles (online), California, September 13.
2023 Co-organizer with Patrick Morgan and Hannah Thomson of a graduate student conference entitled, “Frontiers, Borders, & Boundaries in the Early Global World,” UCLA Medieval & Early Modern Students Association. Los Angeles (hybrid), California, USA, June 2.
2022 Co-organizer with Stefanie Matabang and Richard Ibarra of a graduate student conference entitled, “Intersectionality in the Early Global World,” UCLA Medieval & Early Modern Students Association, Los Angeles (online), California, USA, May 20-21.
2018 Assistant Organizer with Prof. Giuseppe Marcocci and André Jockyman Roithmann of a graduate workshop entitled, “Exploring Iberian History: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop,” University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, June 15.
Selected Conference Presentations
Oct 2023 “Mestizo Apostate: A Cebuano Between the Visayan World and the Transpacific Mexican Inquisition” (2023 Sixteenth-Century Conference, Baltimore).
July 2022 “The Philippine Inquisition: A Transpacific Archive for Southeast Asian History” (2022 WISLI Student Conference, Wisconsin Intensive Summer Language Institutes, University of Wisconsin–Madison).
May 2021 “‘Dr. Orta knows better than all of us’: Investigating the Utility of ‘Orientalism’ as a Framework for Interpreting Garcia da Orta’s Colóquios (1563)” (Resilience, Resistance, and Renewal in the Medieval and Early Modern World,” The Medieval and Early Modern Student Association and Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS), UCLA).
Sept 2019 “‘To the King our Sovereign’: Comparing ‘Transcultural’ Knowledge Production in Works by Manuel Godinho de Erédia and Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala” (Transcultural Knowledge: 1st Young Scholars Conference, European Society for the History of Science, Observatoire de Paris).
Sept 2018 “The Limits of Go-between Knowledge in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia” (8th European Society for the History of Science Biennial Conference, University College, London).
Apr 2018 “Fruits, Fidalgos, and Fortresses: South Asia through the Eyes of a Luso-Malay Cosmographer, c. 1563-1623” (British Association for South Asian Studies Annual Conference, University of Exeter).
Sept 2017 “A Christian Landscape? Negotiating Sacred Places in the Relaciones Geográficas of New Spain, 1579-1586” (World History Workshop Geographies of World History Graduate Conference, University of Cambridge).
Other Academic Presentations
June 2024 “Hiding the Sacred: Juan de Zumárraga and the Hunt for ‘Idols’, 1539-40” (Summer Nahuatl Language and Culture Program Brown Bag Event, University of Utah).
Nov 2023 Chair/Commenter, “Indigenous Mobility, Family Making, and Social Change in Colonial Mexico” (2023 Ethnohistory Conference, Florida State University, hybrid)
Feb 2021 “Critical Conversation: Exploring Visual Materials in the Early Modern World — Opportunities and Challenges for Global History,” presented with Jeffery C. J. Chen; hosted by Zirwat Chowdhury; respondent: Bronwen Wilson (Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA).
Nov 2020 Introductory comments on the approach to early modern science and the bird of paradise in Natalie Lawrence, “Making Monsters,” in Helen Anne Curry et al (eds), Worlds of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018), 94-111 (Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies Reading Group for Graduate Students & Faculty, UCLA).
June 2018 “Mitigating Mestiçagem: Constructing the Indigenous Mother and her Inverses in the Works of Manuel Godinho de Erédia, c. 1558-1623” (“Exploring Iberian History: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop,” University of Oxford).
Invited Presentations & Radio Shows
Apr 2022 Invited Workshop Participant: “The Philippine Inquisition: A Transpacific Archive for Southeast Asian History” (“Rethinking Early Modern Empire,” Early Modern Intellectual and Cultural History Seminar 2021-2022, University of Southern California).
June 2020 Invited Participant in a pre-recorded book discussion of Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman, with hosts Lee Chwi Lynn and Sharmilla Ganesan, “By the Book: Book Club June 2020 – Humankind.” Evening Edition, BFM Media, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Feb 2020 Invited Participant in a pre-recorded talk show, with Ong Jo Lene and host Kam Raslan. “Hybrid Museum Curator.” A Bit of Culture, BFM Media, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Dec 2019 Invited Speaker, “Manuel Godinho de Erédia: An ‘Orientalist from Within’?” (co-organized by the Visual Art Program, Cultural Centre, University of Malaya and the Malaysia Design Archive), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Nov 2019 Invited Pre-Recorded Radio Interview: “Crossing Knowledge Boundaries in the Early Modern World,” with hosts Dr. Simon Soon and Muhammad Haniff Baharudin. Night School, BFM Media, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Teaching & Course Delivery Experience
2024 Invited Workshop Leader, “Workshop on Research Design,” CHS 507: Seminar in Chicana/o Studies Research Methods (Instructor: Prof. Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial), February 21, 2024.
2023 Associate Instructor, HIST 3A: Introduction to the History of Science, Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Instructor: Prof. Amir Alexander), Fall Quarter 2023.
2023 Associate Instructor, HIST 21: World History, circa 600 to 1760, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Sebouh Aslanian). Winter Quarter 2023.
2022 Associate Instructor, HIST 8A: Colonial Latin America, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Kevin Terraciano). Fall Quarter 2022.
2022 Teaching Assistant, HIST 8A: Colonial Latin America, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Kevin Terraciano). Spring Quarter 2022.
2022 Graduate Student Researcher (Canvas Course Delivery Assistant), HIST 176B: History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Geoffrey Robinson). Spring Quarter 2022.
2022 Teaching Assistant, HIST 21: World History, circa 600 to 1760, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Sanjay Subrahmanyam). Winter Quarter 2022.
2021 Teaching Assistant, HIST 1C: Introduction to Western Civilization: Circa 1715 to Present, UCLA Department of History (Instructor: Prof. Caroline Ford). Fall Quarter 2021.
Institutional Service & Employment
2021-24 Officer, Medieval and Early Modern Students Association (MEMSA), UCLA
2022-23 Graduate Coordinator, Pacific World Research Network, Latin American Institute, UCLA
2021-22 Treasurer, History Graduate Students Association (HGSA), Dept. of History, UCLA
2021-22 History Dept. Graduate Student Representative, Social Sciences Council (SSC), UCLA
2019-20 Intern, “The Bigger Picture” Radio Program, BFM Media, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2019 Acquisitions Editorial Intern, Columbia University Press, New York, NY
2019 History Print & Digital Media Editorial Intern, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, NY
2018 Curatorial Intern, New-York Historical Society, New York, NY
Digital Humanities Projects
2018-present Co-Founder and Producer/Presenter, “The Global History Podcast”
2021 Web & Image Specialist, “Entre Las Aguas (Between the Waters): Tracing Spatial Journeys in the Latin American & Latinx Collection of the NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida”
2021 Project Lead, “Visualizing Miguel Saderra Masó’s Earthquake Catalogue (1910): Quantifying Philippine Natural Disasters through the Eyes of a Jesuit Scientist”
2020 Producer, “History on Repeat,” an 8-part mini-series on key subjects, places, and themes in Malaysian history and why they matter today, for the radio show “Live & Learn” on The Bigger Picture at BFM Media, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
