University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of History / Staff / Academic Staff

Dr Blanca Tovías

University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellow


I completed my PhD in History and English at the University of New South Wales (2007), where I worked as a Research Associate and Teacher. I have taught in several disciplines, including courses on the colonizing of the Americas, the politics of dress in history, English literature from Hamlet to Harry Potter, and Spanish Language and Civilisation.

My dissertation, “Resistance and Cultural Revitalization: Reading Blackfoot Agency in the Texts of Cultural Transformation 1870–1920", studies cultural continuity within the four divisions of Niitsitapiksi (The Real People), the Blackfoot speaking First Nations of the Northern Plains of North America, during an era of radical transformation attendant upon American and Canadian settlement of the West. It analyses threads of continuity within the realms of religion, politics, dress, knowledge transmission, and literary genres.

Research areas

  • History and Literature of the First Nations of the Great Plains (United States and Canada).
  • Imperialism and Colonialism throughout The Americas.
  • The History of Exploration and Colonization of the Pacific, 19th Century.
  • The History and Literature of Revitalization Movements in the Americas.

Current projects

  • Native Women and Frontier Colonialisms: First Nations of the Northern Plains of North America, 1730–1930. A study encompassing nine First Nations of the Northern Plains that focuses on women’s history. It analyses oral literatures (“orature”), dress, and fictional representations, in order to dismantle negative stereotypes of First Nations women in early historical accounts.
  • Colonialism on the Prairies: Blackfoot Settlement and Cultural Transformation, 1820–1920. Book. Manuscript in preparation. Based on my PhD dissertation.
  • ‘A Blueprint for Massacre: The United States Army and the 1870 Massacre of Blackfeet on the Marias River, Montana’. Book Chapter. In preparation.

Publications

Books
De la Etnohistoria hacia la Historia de los Andes, John Fisher and David Cahill (eds.), with the collaboration of Blanca Tov'as, Quito: Abya-Yala, 2008. ISBN 978-9978-22.

New World, First Nations: Native Peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes under Colonial Rule, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. ISBN 1-903900-63-8.

Élites Ind'genas en los Andes: Nobles, Caciques y Cabildantes bajo el Yugo Colonial, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003. ISBN 997822-293-6.

Articles and Book Chapters
‘Navigating the Cultural Encounter: Blackfoot Religious Resistance in Canada (c.1870–1930)’, in Dirk Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History, New York: Berghahn Books, 2008, pp. 271–95. ISBN 978-1-84545-452-4.

‘Power Dressing on the Prairies: The Grammar of Blackfoot Leadership Dress’, in Louise Edwards and Mina Roces (eds), Gender, Nation and the Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2007, pp. 139–62. ISBN 978-1-84519-163-4.

‘Colonialism and Demographic Catastrophes in the Americas: Blackfoot Tribes of the Northwest’, in Patricia Grimshaw and Russell McGregor (eds), Collision of Cultures and Identities: Settlers and Indigenous Peoples. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2006, pp. 72–8. ISBN 0 975839 27 6. Electronic edition by the University of Melbourne. RMIT Press, pp. 72–78. EISBN: 1921166282.

‘Introduction: First Nations between Conquest and Independence’, in David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), New World, First Nations: Native Peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes under Colonial Rule. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2006, pp. 1–9. ISBN 1-903900-63-8.

‘Infected by the Hybrid? Framing Blackfoot Stories across Genres’, New Literatures Review 43 (2006): pp. 83–97. ISSN 0314-7495.

‘Introducción: Las élites nativas andinas durante la época colonial’, in Élites Ind'genas en los Andes: Nobles, Caciques y Cabildantes bajo el Yugo Colonial, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds). Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003, pp. 9–16. ISBN 997822-293-6.