Alex Hidalgo, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Latin American History

a.hidalgo@tcu.edu817-257-6644Reed Hall 104 (map link)TCU Box 297260

Program Affiliations

AddRan College of Liberal Arts History

Printing & Cartography /
Latin American History

Education

Ph.D., University of Arizona (2013)
MA, San Diego State University (2006)
BA, United States International University (1997)

Courses Taught

Undergraduate:
HIST 10923 Latin American History: The Colonial Period

HIST 20003 The Historian's Craft
HIST 30673 History of Museums and Collecting
HIST 30970 Secrets of Nature in the Iberian World
HIST 49903 History Major Seminar

Graduate:

HIST 70903 Reading Seminar: Race and Colonialism

HIST 80813 Research Seminar: Cartography and Power
HIST 70903 Reading Seminar: Archives and Empire

Areas of Focus

Mesoamerican ethnohistory, print culture, archives and collecting, sound, Iberian Atlantic, and history of cartography.

"A Potions Lesson: Experiential Learning in the History Classroom," The History Teacher 57, no. 3 (2024): 397-407.
"Bookmaking in Tlatelolco After the Apocalypse," in American Contact: Intercultural Encounter and the History of the Book, ed. Rhae Lynn Barnes and Glenda Goodman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024): 82-89.
"The Heist: A Massive Theft of Pre-Columbian Art Reveals Troubling Truths About Texans' Role in the Illicit Antiquities Trade," co-authored with Jack Emery, Michael Fung, Sofía Gómez Pichardo, Jack Hines, Anthony Peebler, and Leonel Rodriguez, Texas Observer, June 10, 2024.
Guest editor, "Reproduction and the Mesoamerican Book," Dialogues of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 5 no. 4 (2023).
"The Echo of Voices after the Fall of the Aztec Empire," Hispanic American Historical Review 103, no. 2 (2023): 217-249. *Awarded the James Alexander Robertson Prize by the Conference on Latin American History for best article published in HAHR.
"Collecting and Preserving Colonial Latin American Materials Today: A Roundtable," with Corinna Zeltsman; trans. Michael Brescia. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 117 n. 1 (2023): 109-122.
“The Book as Archive,” American Historical Review 127, no. 1 (2022): 373-384.
"Never Mind the Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols at 45," PopMatters, November 2, 2022.
Trail of Footprints: A History of Indigenous Maps from Viceregal Mexico (University of Texas Press, July 2019).
“Why Mexico should Stop Blaming Spain for its Problems,” The Washington Post, April 12, 2019.
“How to Map with Ink: Cartographic Materials from Colonial Oaxaca,” Ethnohistory 61, no. 2 (2014): 277-299.
Guest Editor (with John F. López), “The Ethnohistorical Map in New Spain,” Editor’s Special Issue of Ethnohistory 61, no. 2 (2014): 223-228.
Guest Editor (with John F. López), “Imperial Geographies and Spatial Memories in Spanish America,” special issue of the Journal of Latin American Geography 11 special (2012): 1-4.
“A True and Faithful Copy: Reproducing Indian Maps in the Seventeenth-Century Valley of Oaxaca,” Journal of Latin American Geography 11 special (2012): 119-145.

“Policing Mexico City’s Supernatural Soundscape,” public lecture, John Carter Brown Library and the Southwest Seminar, Providence, RI (2024)
“Bibliocide and the Recovery of the Mesoamerican Book,” invited paper for Amoxtli Workshop, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (2024)
“Reassembly through Reproduction: Zelia Nuttall’s Search for Lost Mexican Codices,” invited paper for Destroyed, Removed, and Reassembled: Book Collections in the Premodern World, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2023)
"Training the Historical Ear: Object Lessons in Sound and Subversion," invited talk for Sawyer Seminar on Sensorial Methodologies," Penn State (2022)
“Study of a Mutilated Map: Indigenous Cartography Out of Context,” keynote lecture for Ruderman Conference on Cartography, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University (2021)
“The Book as Archive,” Rare Book School Summer Lecture Series (2021).
“La bibliografía radical de un poeta zapoteco,” invited speaker, Seminario Interdisciplinario de Bibliología, Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2021)
“The Book is a Foreign Object: Teaching Latin American History with Special Collections,” Teaching and Teaching Materials Meeting, Conference on Latin American History Annual Meeting (2021)
“El eco de las voces después de la caída del imperio azteca,” invited speaker, Biblioteca Lafragua (2020)
“A Potions Lesson: Ink, Artisanal Knowledge, and Bookmaking in Spanish America,” invited talk delivered at the Bibliographical Society of America Annual Meeting, New York City, NY (2019)
“Archival Privilege,” Colonial Studies Committee Meeting, Conference on Latin American History/American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. (2018)
“Bicephalous Between the Pages,” Bibliography Among the Disciplines Conference, Rare Book School and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2017)

James Alexander Robertson Prize for best article published in Hispanic American Historical Review, Conference on Latin American History, 2024
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2022-2023
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 2021
A.M. Pate Jr. Professorship, Texas Christian University, 2021-22
Andrew W. Mellow Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, 2019-21
Lewis Hanke Prize, Conference on Latin American History, 2014
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, 2012-13
Albert J. Beveridge Grant, American Historical Association, 2011
Kislak Short-Term Fellowship in American Studies, Library of Congress, 2010
Fulbright García-Robles, U.S. Department of State, 2009

Last Updated: September 28, 2025

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