ANTHRO: October Archaeology lecture

[James Mullooly PhD]

> ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE
> “The Jesuit Missions of Argentina”
> Dr. James Kus
>
> Emeritus Professor of Geography CSU Fresno
>
> MONDAY, October 6th
> 7:00 pm
> Alice Peters Auditorium
> University Business Center
> Sponsored by:
> Fresno County Archaeological Society/San Joaquin Valley Chapter, AIA
> Department of Geography, CSUF
>
> FREE ADMISSION
>
> The October meeting of the Fresno County Archaeological Society/San
> Joaquin Valley Chapter, Archaeological Institute of America, will be
> on Monday, October 6th at 7:00 PM. As usual, our meeting will take
> place in the Alice Peters Auditorium in the University Business Center
> on the east side of the Fresno State campus. Free parking will be
> only in the two rows marked “UBC” directly in front of the lecture
> hall.
>
> OCTOBER LECTURE:
>
> Our speaker for this month will be Dr. James Kus, emeritus professor
> of Geography at Fresno State, who will present a lecture entitled “T
> he
> Jesuit Missions of Argentina.” In actuality, the topic will be a b
> it
> broader than indicated in the title, because he will be talking about
> both the Jesuit estancias (ranches) and missions that were established
> in the 17th and 18th centuries in the region that today includes parts
> of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. If the details can be worked out,
> the lecture will begin with a clip from a Robert De Niro film and will
> end with a few non-archaeological shots of great tourist (and scenic)
> interest.
>
> Members of the Society of Jesus (hereafter, the Jesuits) first arrived
> in the Western Hemisphere in 1550. They were late-comers to the New
> World, having been preceded by, among others, the Franciscans,
> Dominicans, and Augustinians. As a result, the Jesuits were assigned
> roles on the fringes of colonial Spanish America: Sonora and Baja
> California in Mexico and the Pampas/Chaco borderlands in the
> southeastern corner of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The first Jesuits
> arrived in what is today Argentina in 1586 (founding reducciones near
> Tucuman) and in Paraguay the following year. Over the course of the
> next several decades, the Jesuits set up more than four dozen centers
> to proselytize to the native populations. By the early 1700s more
> than one hundred thousand natives (mainly Guarani speakers) were
> living in the Jesuit missions, which were notably successful in
> educating the natives and protecting them from marauding Portuguese
> slavers from southern Brazil. Political tension
> s and intrigues between Spain and Portugal ultimately led to the
> expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America in 1767. Most of the
> missions were abandoned and lie in ruins today.
>
> James Kus, one of the founders of the Fresno County Archaeological
> Society, recently retired from Fresno State, although he continues to
> teach on a part-time basis. His classes at the university have
> focused on cultural geography and Latin America -- he’s lived about
> eight years in Peru and has traveled widely throughout the Western
> Hemisphere. He first traveled to Argentina in 1970 and most recently
> he and Ananda visited northeastern Argentina this past August.
>
> The lecture is free and open to the public. For further information,
> please call 278-5236 or 325-8020 or email jam...@csufresno.edu
>
>
>