Dr. Monica Morales is Associate Professor of Latin American Colonial Studies. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University. Her research interests mainly focus on the systems of domination and critiques produced by colonial and colonized subjects from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Postcolonial theory, urban studies, visual culture and affect and sound studies inform her interdisciplinary research and teaching on representation, language, emotions, biopower, and rights. The methodologies that shape the field frame her undergraduate and graduate teaching so that students can be equipped to successfully begin their own analysis and interpretations. Dr. Morales is the author of Reading Inebriation in Early Colonial Peru. (2012, 2017). She is currently working on her second monograph. The study interrogates the theoretical links between colonial discourse and justice through the notion of wellbeing, as it was produced through relationships of management during the 16th and 17th centuries in the Caribbean, Andes and New Spain.
Publications
Books:
Morales, Monica. Reading Inebriation in Early Colonial Peru. Ashgate 2012, Routledge, 2017.
Viewing a variety of narratives through the lens of inebriation imagery, this book explores how such imagery emerges in colonial Peru as articulator of notions of the self and difference, resulting in a new social hierarchy and exploitation. Reading Inebriation in Early Colonial Peru evaluates the discursive and geo-political relevance of representations of drinking and drunkenness in the crucial period for the consolidation of colonial power in the Viceroyalty of Peru, and the resisting rhetoric of a Hispanicized native Andean writer interested in changing stereotypes and promoting tolerance at imperial level in one of the main centers of Spanish colonial economic activity in the Americas. In recognizing and addressing this imagery, my research restores an element of colonial discourse that hitherto has been overlooked in the critical readings dealing with the history of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Andes. It presents drinking as the metaphorical site where Western culture and the New World collide and define themselves on the grounds of differing drinking rituals and ideas of moderation and excess. Narratives such as dictionaries, legal documents, conversion manuals, historical writings, literary accounts, and chronicles frame the context of analysis.
Regina Harrison, "Mónica P. Morales. Reading Inebriation in Early Colonial Peru," Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 685-687. https://doi.org/10.1086/677495
Articles:
"Creole Listening, Good Governance, and Tortillas in Alboroto y Motin de Mexico " Hispanofila, vol. 204, 2025, pp. 21-37.
¿Se puede hablar de solidaridad y defensa en la narrativa de Guamán Poma sobre los Indios en Buen gobierno? Letras, vol. 91, no.133, 2020. pp. 211-32. http://revista.letras.unmsm.edu.pe/index.php/le/article/view/821/647&nb…;
"La distancia y la modestia: Las 'dos' caras del Atlántico en los versos de Sor Juana a la duquesa de Aveyro." Revista Hispánica Moderna, vol. 63, no.1, 2010, pp. 9-33.
"Inebriation Imagery and 'Epistemic Shift:' The Case of Guamán Poma de Ayala." Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 43, no. 3, 2009, pp. 449-70.
"La mujer indígena, la sexualidad y el tambo: Transacciones desestabilizadoras en El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno." Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos y Literatura, vol. 5, 2005-2006, pp. 69-80.
"La tertulia y el picholeo: La colonia y el cambio social resuenan en Martín Rivas." Hispanófila, vol. 144, 2005, pp. 61-73.
"Translation and the Discovery of Western and Andean Epistemologies in the Practices of Alcohol Drinking." Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 31, no.1, 2004, pp. 45-61.
"Women and Alcohol: Cultural Essence and Social Deviance in Early Twentieth Century South America." Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura, vol.18, no. 2, 2003, pp. 53-66.
Recent Book Reviews
Laura Leon Llerena. Reading the Illegible: Indigenous Writing and the Limits of Colonial Hegemony in the Andes. "Reviews of Books." Bulletin of Spanish Studies, May 2026, pp. 14-15. doi:10.1080/14753820.2026.2651019.
José Carlos de Puente Luna. Andean Cosmopolitans: Seeking Justice and Reward at the Spanish Royal Court.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 72, no.2, 2019, pp. 688-89
Awards
2026 The Spanish and Portuguese Faculty Mentorship Award
Courses Taught
- SPAN 696b Spanish American Literature
- SPAN 531 Topics in Spanish American Literature: Pre-Columbian Period to Independence
- SPAN 530 From Pre-Columbian Period to Independence.
- SPAN 449 Topics in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies
- SPAN 431 Issues in Spanish American Culture
- SPAN 401 Major Works in Latin American Literature
- SPAN 352 Reading Politics and Culture in the Hispanic World
- SPAN 350 Readings in the Literary Genres