Thomas B.F. Cummins

Lived and taught in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. His research combines art history with anthropology, the analysis of material culture with the analysis of both printed and manuscript sources. His interests include the analysis of early Ecuadorian ceramic figurines and the study of late Pre-Columbian systems of knowledge and representation, especially Inca, and their impact on the formation of 16th- and 17th-century colonial artistic and social forms. He also published essays on New World town planning, the early images of the Inca, miraculous images in Colombia, and on the relationship between visual and alphabetic literacy in the conversion of Indians. He collaborated with a team of scholars at the Getty Research Institute to study two illustrated manuscripts from 17th-century Peru. He has been awarded "The Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English or Spanish in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and cultures," awarded by Modern Language Association, 2014; "The Bryce Wood Book Award to the outstanding book on Latin America in the social sciences and humanities published in English," awarded by The Latin American Studies Association, 2013: La Orden “Al Mérito por Servicios Distinguidos" En el Grado de Gran Cruz bestowed by the Republic of Peru, December 12, 2011, awarded by President Humala and presented by Ambassador Forsyth Mejia.