Theo Klein to Study Colonial Church Architecture in Peru this Summer

Anthropology major Theo Klein has been awarded an APLE Summer Stipend from the College of Arts and Sciences to fund his research project “Examining Church Architecture and Evangelization at Carrizales, Peru.” He will use this highly competitive grant, which is awarded to only two UVM undergraduates per year, to collaborate with Anthropology Department faculty member Parker VanValkenburgh in his excavations at the Spanish colonial site of Carrizales, in Peru’s north coast region. Founded as a “reduccion” — one of a string of planned towns to which the Spanish colonial government forced native subjects to move during the 1570’s AD — Carrizales offers a unique context for examining the spatial dynamics of Spanish colonialism and the processes through which colonists sought to convert and “civilize” local populations. Theo’s research will focus on the architecture of the site’s most monumental structure (its church) and offer on of the first systematic studies of vernacular church architecture in the colonial Spanish Americas. Congratulations Theo!

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