Event Location:
Memorial Library, Special Collections (9th Floor)
976 Memorial Library, 728 State St, Madison, WI 53703

Discussion to follow at Memorial Union Rathskeller 
800 Langdon St #1211, Madison, WI 53706

Please join us as we visit the Department of Special Collections in Memorial Library to view a 1619 manuscript documenting the prohibition of peyote in colonial New Spain. We will be joined by special guest Dr. Alberto Vargas, Associate Director of Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS) at UW-Madison, and Laura Martin, Ibero-American Studies and Romance Languages Librarian, and Jorge Hernandez Lasa, a dissertator in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and an expert in medieval Spanish.

We will discuss how colonialism in New Spain worked to extinguish traditional ways of being, established ownership of the unownable, and limited access to sacred medicine and ways of life. We explore how colonialistic perceptions of the other, including diabolism and heathenism, shape control measures, cultural beliefs, and persistent residual views. The contentious issues of Peyote use and who has access are still prevalent today, especially as attitudes shift towards psychedelics and many look for ways to heal modernity’s ills. With liberalization movements mounting, conservation pressures increasing, and the need to amplify indigenous voices and knowledge, how do we best learn and apply lessons from the past as we change our relationships with psychoactive substances and work toward a decolonized future?

Representatives from the nonprofit online psychedelic prior art library Porta Sophia (www.portasophia.org) will be in attendance to speak about their Archival Researcher Network (ARN) and how archival psychedelic research helps to support their mission to prevent overly-broad psychedelic patents.

Please join us for a continued discussion following the viewing at the Rathskeller from 5:15-6:30 pm.

Borghesi-Mellon workshops foster conversations and connections about psychedelics in society at the intersections of science and humanities. They are designed to generate a deeper understanding of psychedelics past, present, and future.

All are welcome! RSVP is required. Please RSVP by 2 pm Friday, March 3rd.

Questions? Email Liz Birkhauser (liz.birkhauser@wisc.edu).