Mark Lentz, Ph.D.
Faculty Member Utah Valley University
- Orem UT
Lentz is an expert in the history of colonial Mexico, Central America, and the Atlantic World
Media
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Honorable Mention for the RMCLAS Article Award
Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies - March, 2021
Education
Tulane University
Ph.D.
Colonial Latin American History
2009
Tulane University
M.A.
Colonial Latin American History
2004
Nebraska Wesleyan University
B.A.
History
2001
Courses
Senior Research Thesis Writing Component
HIST 4990
Modern Latin America
HIST 2050G
Articles
Book Review - The Friar and the Maya: Diego de Landa and the “Account of the Things of Yucatan
Hispanic American Historical Review2025-02-01
In 2002, Matthew Restall and John F. Chuchiak IV published an article in the journal Ethnohistory reconsidering the authorship of the manuscript commonly referred to as the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. In the bibliography, Restall and Chuchiak cited an unpublished manuscript in progress, “The Friar and the Maya: Fray Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán.” Twenty-one years later, Restall and Chuchiak, joined by two key coauthors, Amara Solari and Traci Ardren, published the much-anticipated work to impressive results.
Where Have All the Archives Gone? Yucatán’s Missing and Mobile Municipal Archives
Anglia2024-12-05
During the heady years of the late 1970 s through the early 1990 s, scholars undertaking Indigenous-language research in English-language academia sparked enthusiasm and optimism regarding the impending discovery of many Native language sources.
Review - Mark Z. Christensen. Aztec and Maya Apocalypses: Old World Tales of Doom in a New World Setting.
American Historical Review2024-06-13
The latest of a resurgence in works scrutinizing friars’ proselytization efforts and their reception by Indigenous Americans focuses on the Mayas and Aztecs and how they incorporated the introduced concept of the apocalypse into their own cosmovision.
Book Review - Death in Old Mexico: The 1789 Dongo Murders and How They Shaped the History of a Nation
Hispanic American Historical Review2024-02-01
One of the best recent additions to a growing number of microhistories of crime in colonial Latin America, Nicole von Germeten's Death in Old Mexico stands out for its page-turning narrative flow, the extensive research behind it, and the evocative sense of Mexico City that readers will discover within its pages.
Mexico’s Urban Indians
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History2022-12-21
Mexico’s indigenous population developed urbanism on a large scale before Spanish invaders arrived. Indians constituted the majority in most Mexican cities through the colonial era and, in many cases, after independence. Tenochtitlan, reborn as Mexico City after the Spanish Conquest (1519–1521), remained one of the largest world metropolises and a home to millions of indigenous inhabitants.
Mediating at the Margins_ Yucatan’s Interpreters in Unconquered Lands, 1600-1697
Historia Crítica2021-04-01
This article emphasizes the distinct duties of interpreters general, primarily working in legal matters, and mediators at the margins of colonial control. The widespread flight of Mayas seeking relief shifted the linguistic map of the interior, requiring speakers of multiple languages rather than the service of interpreters general who resided in Yucatan.
