Carmen Fracchia

Overview

Biography

Trained originally in Italian art history of the early modern period, I am a specialist in Hispanic Art History, with particular interest in relations between the Spanish visual form of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and issues of 'blackness', 'slavery' and 'freedom', 'human diversity' and 'race', and, religion, and, intellectual thought in the formation of the Iberian Empire.

My current research focuses on:

• the overlooked area of the complex specificity of slave subjectivity in the visual form
• the visual and cultural contribution made by Afro-Spanish enslaved and freed artists between 1480-1700 in Hapsburg Spain.
• the case of the Afro-Spanish painter Juan de Pareja (c.1606-1670), ex-enslaved assistant to Diego Velázquez in Madrid at the Spanish Court and in Rome in the Papal Court.

Highlights

• 27 November 2021, 4.30pm-5.30pm. Keynote Picturing the African Presence in Early Modern Spain.The Golden Age Research Symposium, 26-28 November 2021, University College Cork. Programme: 

  https://view.genial.ly/6159db80508b650d6e3d12bf

• 30th September 2021. Invited to give a 50-minute talk in Spanish about The Image of Black Africans in Golden Age Spain,  2pm-4pm (London time), in Facebook-Live. Initially aimed as a class to UG History students for the module 'New Spain 16th-17th Centuries', Dept. of History, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM- ACATLÁN) is now open to the general public

   Link: https://www.facebook.com/histacatlan

• Exhibition: 13 May-18 September 2022

  La Voce delle Ombre. Presenze africane nell'arte dell'Italia settentrionale [XVI-XIX]

  The Voice of the Shadows. African Presence in the Art of Northern Italy [16th-19th Centuries]

  For the catalogue and summary see:

  https://www.silvanaeditoriale.it/libro/9788836651702

  Museo delle Culture di Milano-MUDEC

  As a member of the Scientific Committee for this exhibition, I was invited to write about the 'The Iconography of the Miracle of the Black Leg' for the wonderful catalogue with contributions by Federica Morelli, Giulia Bonazza, Luca Tozzi and Silvio Leydi. This is one of the first exhibitions dedicated to the visual representation of African people in the North of Italy from the early modern period to the nineteenth century.

• Representing hidden histories on stage and screen: Two Workshops with The CATALINA Film Team (21 & 28 Sep)

  When: 21 September 2021, 18:00 — 20:00
  Venue: Online

  This first workshop aims to provide you with insights into the process of how the Untold Arts team translates hidden histories into theatre and film and introduce you to our latest project, about an Arab woman privy to some of the Tudor royals’ greatest secrets. This will include talks and discussions with the creative team (from the UK & USA) including:

  6.00pm: Introduction – Professor Luciana Martins

  6.05pm: The Catalina Project – Nadia Nadif (Actress and Producer)

  6.35pm: The World of Catalina – Professor Carmen Fracchia

  6.55pm: How the history has informed our process as film makers – Fawaz Al-Matrouk (Director), Leah Curtis (Music Composer)

  7.45pm: Preparing Workshop 2 – Nadia Nadif (28 September)

• NEW BOOK
  

  'Black but Human': Slavery and Visual Arts in Hapsburg Spain, 1480-1700 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).ISBN 9780198767978

  REVIEWS

  "Fracchia’s groundbreaking book, rich in untapped archival sources, lays a foundation for a new understanding of racial blackness and its representation in the Iberian-Atlantic world. Fracchia integrates diasporic African cultural production and its reception with unprecedented depth and clarity—essential reading for anyone interested in race, aesthetics, art history, cultural studies, Atlantic history, and black studies.”- Jesse McCarthy, Harvard University. Author of Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?, 2021.

  "A wonderful, scholarly, imaginative and necessary work [...] It profoundly develops our understanding of the semiotic construction of the black body [...] The work on the miracle of the black leg is extraordinary. [...] It has finally done justice to Velazquez, Juan de Pareja [...]This book has made available a hitherto neglected mini archive within the study of the visual cultures generated by Atlantic slavery." - Marcus Wood, University of Sussex. Author of The Black Butterfly: Brazilian Slavery and The Literary Imagination, 2020.

  "Almost every page has some new, revealing insights....I whole heartedly recommended this book, unreservedly." - Michael Ohajuru, Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, 2019.

• For some reason, Channel 5 abruptly ended the series 'Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr' with no warning. On July 2nd, Marr announced at the end of his episode, dedicated to Picasso, that next time, he and his team of experts (including myself), would discuss Diego Velázquez and his painting 'Rokeby Venus', at the National Gallery London. The broadcast was due on Friday 9th July.

Qualifications

• PhD (London), University College London, 1996
• Laurea (Siena), University of Siena, Italy, 1984

Web profiles

• Academia .edu
• Research Gate
• Linkedin

Administrative responsibilities

• Co-Director-Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies-CILAVS
• Chair, BA Sub-Board of Examiners, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies
• Disability Lead for Cultures and Languages
• Tutor, under 18-applicants
• Tutor, BA SPLAS

Visiting posts

• Visiting Professor , University of Pittsburgh, USA, 09-2017 to 09-2017
• Visiting Professor, University of Chicago, USA, 02-2017 to 02-2017
• Visiting Professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico, 10-2015 to 10-2015
• Visiting Professor, University Rey Juan Carlos (URJC), Madrid, Spain, 04-2011 to 04-2011
• Visiting Professor, University of Granada, Spain, 10-2009 to 07-2013

Research

Research interests

• visual articulation of human diversity, race, hybridity and religion in early modern Spain and colonial Mexico
• visual representation of blackness, enslavery and freedom in early modern Spain
• artistic workshops in early modern Spain
• iconography of the miracle of the black leg
• portraiture and the unworthy subject, visual articulation of human diversity, subjectivity, agency, representation and self-representation
• early modern Spanish paintings
• early modern Spanish polychromed sculptures

Research overview

My pioneering research about the visual representation of blackness and slavery in the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile in early modern Spain (15th C-17th C) is being:

1. guided by archival study of visual and textual sources
2. strengthened by

(a) three collaborative networks about Slavery and Abolitionism with the University of Granada (Spain), sponsored by the Spanish government 

(b) appointments as visiting scholar at the:

• Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Granada (Spain)
• Department of Media Studies at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid (Spain)
• Department of Philosophy and Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico City)
• the Department of History of Art and Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago (USA)
• Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh (USA).

Research Centres and Institutes

• Co-Director, Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS)
• member, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds

Research clusters and groups

• invited member , CA18129 - Islamic Legacy: Narratives East, West, South, North of the Mediterranean (1350-1750)

Post doctoral staff

• Prof Borja Franco Llopis

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

8

Current doctoral researchers

• ANNE BIGGS

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2019 onwards

• HILARY FUREY

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017 onwards

• JAVIER VICENTE ARENAS

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2018 onwards

• MICHAEL POPE

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017 onwards

  Title of thesis:

  Proslytizing Empires: Creating New Christians in the Iberian Atlantic, 1492-1668

• RAQUEL VILLAR-PEREZ

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2021 onwards

  Title of thesis:

  From Presentation to Self-Representation. African Visual Legacies in Afro Mexican Contemporary Art

  Description:

  From Presentation to Self-Representation. African Visual Legacies in Afro Mexican Contemporary Art will consider the under-researched contributions of sub-Saharan African cultures to the visual arts in Mexico and the legacies articulated in the work of contemporary Mexican artists that self-identified as Afro-Mexicans.

  Although the presence of Black people in Latin America dates back to the 16th century as a consequence of the conquest and colonisation of the continent, their social, economic, and cultural contributions to the development of the continent have only started to gradually being recognised in the past few decades. In Mexico, consciousness of what is known as ‘La Tercera Raíz’ is relatively new, since after the Mexican Revolution in 1910 ‘it was assumed that cultural homogenization was a necessary condition for the configuring of a modern nation’ (Ramsay, 2016). In 1925, the Mexican presidential candidate José Vasconcelos dubbed the idea of the ‘cosmic race’ and Mexico became the prime example of a mestizo nation. 

  This investigation will explore two crucial questions that will open the conversations to ideas ranging from stereotypes to agency, significance, creativity, negotiation and innovation: In which ways were Afro-Mexicans represented in the visual arts by non-Black artists in colonial Mexico and during the independence periods? Similarly, in which ways did Afro-Mexicans present themselves in the visual form in colonial Mexico and during the independence periods? 

  Further general questions: Are there any shared imagery and signifiers with African traditions? If so, which ones? From where in Africa? What do they mean in the African and in the Mexican context? Do they have any other influences? How does their practice fit in and expand the idea of Diaspora art? How does their practice contribute to the formation of the Afro-Mexican identity in detriment of the mestizo?

• TREVOR WORNHAM

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017 onwards

Doctoral alumni

• RICHARD TILBURY

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2005

  Title of thesis:

  Iconography of the Spanish Black Legend: A War of Images

  Awarded:

  2021

• MAIRI MACDONALD

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor

  Awarded:

  2018

Teaching

Teaching modules

• Power and Control in Spanish Golden Age Art (ARCL010S5)
• Interrogating the Self (ARCL066S7)
• Connecting the Arts (AREN126S5)
• Introduction to Hispanic Studies (ARIB136S4)

Publications