Michael M Brescia
- Curator
- Curator, Ethnohistory
- Professor, History
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
- Head, Research - Arizona State Museum
Contact
- (520) 621-4895
- Raymond H. Thompson Building, Rm. 221
- Tucson, AZ 85721
- brescia@arizona.edu
Degrees
- Ph.D. History
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Work Experience
- UA National Center for Interpretation (2024 - Ongoing)
- Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies (2021 - Ongoing)
- Southwest Center (2021 - Ongoing)
- James E. Rogers College of Law (2017 - Ongoing)
- Department of History (2016 - Ongoing)
- Arizona State Museum (2016 - Ongoing)
- Arizona State Museum (2009 - 2016)
- Department of History (2009 - 2016)
- Center for Latin American Studies (2005 - Ongoing)
Awards
- Visiting Professor of History
- University of Suffolk, Ipswich, England., Fall 2026
- Visiting Professor and Researcher
- Universidad de la República Uruguay, Spring 2025
- El Colegio de San Luis, A.C., San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Fall 2019
- Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence
- The Stephenson Institute for Classical Liberalism, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, Spring 2024
- Al Merito Award
- Arizona Historical Society, Fall 2023
- Visiting Research Scholar and Professor
- Princeton University, Fall 2023
- Dan Shilling Humanities Public Scholar Award
- Arizona Humanities, Fall 2021
- Visiting Research Fellow
- T.C. Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, Fall 2019
- The 2018 Wayne N. Aspinall Chair in History
- Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, Colorado, Spring 2018
- The 2014 Jerome I. Braun Prize in Western Legal History
- Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society, headquartered in Pasadena, California., Winter 2014
Interests
Research
Colonial Mexico, paleography and translation, early modern print culture and libraries, Catholic Church, Nineteenth-Century Mexico and the Borderlands, U.S. Southwest, living legacies of Spanish colonial and early Mexican property law, water rights
Teaching
Mexico, Spanish and Mexican Borderlands, Comparative North America, World History, Historical Method and Research
Courses
2025-26 Courses
-
Intro Study of History
HIST 301 (Fall 2025)
2024-25 Courses
-
Intro Study of History
HIST 301 (Fall 2024)
2022-23 Courses
-
Independent Study
HIST 699 (Fall 2022) -
Intro Study of History
HIST 301 (Fall 2022)
2021-22 Courses
-
Intro Study of History
HIST 301 (Fall 2021)
2020-21 Courses
-
Nat Res & Law Sp Mx Border
HIST 442 (Fall 2020) -
Nat Res & Law Sp Mx Border
HIST 542 (Fall 2020)
2018-19 Courses
-
Compar History N America
HIST 150C5 (Fall 2018)
2017-18 Courses
-
Independent Study
LAS 599 (Fall 2017) -
Topics Lat American Hist
HIST 495G (Fall 2017)
2016-17 Courses
-
Compar History N America
HIST 150C5 (Fall 2016)
Scholarly Contributions
Books
- Brescia, M. M., & Raat, W. D. (2010).
Mexico and the United States: Ambivalent Vistas
. Athens: University of Georgia Press.More info4th ed. - Brescia, M. M., & Super, J. C. (2009).
North America: An Introduction
. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Chapters
- Brescia, M. M. (2022).
La historia del futuro de la Biblioteca Palafoxiana por medio de sus fundarores. (The History of the Future of the Biblioteca Palafoxiana via its Founders)
. In La Biblioteca Palafoxiana de la Ciudad de Puebla: Celebrando 375 anos de su fundacion y 15 anos de ser nombrada Memoria del Mundo(pp 77-99). Puebla and Oaxaca: Fundacion Manuel Toussaint, A.C., Fundacion Alfredo Harp Helu, and 1450 Ediciones.More infoEdited by Montserrat Galí Boadella - Brescia, M. M. (2007).
Faith in Mystery: The Transcendence of Religious Sensibilities in Colonial Mexican Art.
. In Mysterium Fidei(pp 8-12). Los Angeles, Calif.: La Luz de Jesus Press.More infoEdited by Daniel Martin Diaz. - Brescia, M. M. (2004).
Spanish Water Law
. In Encyclopedia of the Great Plains(p. 863). University of Nebraska Press.More infoEdited by David J. Wishart.
Journals/Publications
- Brescia, M. M. (2022).
The Long View of Arizona History
. The Smoke Signal, 110/111.More infoI served as Guest Editor of this special issue of The Smoke Signal. - Brescia, M. M. (2015).
The Historian as Expert Witness.
. The Public Historian, 37(1).More infoGuest editor of this special issue of the journal, The Public Historian.
Reviews
- Brescia, M. M. (2022. Cultura entre la muchedumbre y el rincón solitario: Hacia una aproximación integradora de lo efímero. (Culture between the Crowd and the Secluded Corner: Toward an Integrative Approach to the Ephemeral)(pp 12, no. 23: 5-8). San Luis Potosi, Mexico.More infoReview Essay
- BRESCIA, M. M. (2007.
The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.
(pp 96-99).
Creative Productions
- Brescia, M. M. (2023.
Collecting and Preserving Colonial Latin American Materials Today: A Roundtable.
. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America.More infoMy English translation of a roundtable discussion moderated and edited by Alex Hidalgo and Corinna Zeltsman. - Brescia, M. M. (2021.
New World's Rome: Mexico City in the Age of Sor Juana.
. Translation, published by UNAM San Antonio. San Antonio TX: UNAM San Antonio. https://www.amazon.com/NEW-WORLDS-ROME-Mexico-Juana/dp/B09LZX6W2Y/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Brescia Michael M.&qid=1637468648&sr=8-2More infoMy English translation of Antonio Rubial Garcia's book on daily life in seventeenth-century Mexico City. - Brescia, M. M., & Lueg, G. A. (2007.
El daño que padece el bien común: castas revendedoras y los conflictos por la venta de carne en Santiago de Guatemala, 1650-1730.
. Mesoamerica 49.More infoSpanish translation of an article written in English by Marth Few. - Brescia, M. M. (2000.
War and Peace with the United States.
. The Oxford History of MexicoOxford University Press.More infoMy English translation of the chapter written by Josefina Vázquez Zoraida. - Brescia, M. M., & Petras, J. (2000.
The FARC Faces the Empire
. Latin American Perspectives. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0094582x0002700508More infoMy English translation of James Petras's essay in Latin American Perspectives.
Others
- Brescia, M. M. (2016, December).
The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in the Nordic Countries.
. De Gruyter Publishers.More infoI am the Language Editor of this book written by Ole Jorgen Benedictow and published by De Gruyter Publishers, headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. I edited the 400-page manuscript, which was written in English by a non-native English speaking scholar. The book is an ethnohistorical assessment of disease and demography in the Nordic Countries in light of the devastation caused by the plague or Black Death.
