Claire Lavarreda  0:03  
Okay. All right. So thank you so much, Ben, for joining me in this project. I'm super excited to talk to you. This is for the oral history project and Omeka-S digital archive site, "How We Remember," where I speak to indigenous and non Indigenous scholars about indigenous history topics, related subjects, anything of that sort of interest. So to really get started, would you mind stating your name, age and your current occupation?

Ben Leeming  0:32  
Sure, my name is Ben Leeming. And as of 2024, I'm 53 years old. And for 27 or 28 years now been a member of the history faculty at the River School in Western Massachusetts.

Claire Lavarreda  0:53  
I think that's awesome. And once again, thank you for participating. Could you also tell me a little bit about your background and where you grew up?

Ben Leeming  1:06  
I'm a Massachusetts native, I grew up in the Boston area, I've lived here my whole life. I'm a New Englander through and through and went to school here at Tufts University undergrad, did some master's work at Harvard University at a short trip outside of New England, immediate New England doing PhD studies at the University at Albany, one of the SUNY schools, and I live just outside of Boston in one of the suburbs. And as I said, I've been here my whole life. Yep.

Claire Lavarreda  1:43  
Tried and true New Englander. I'm guessing you probably have opinions on clam chowder and all that.

Ben Leeming  1:50  
Sure. Sure. And, and, and all all kinds of things like that. Absolutely.

Claire Lavarreda  1:55  
And then before getting into any research questions, sort of the last sort of fun fact question. A personal question is, is there anything, like, a fun fact or something interesting about you that you'd want to share? And it doesn't have to be relevant to your research?

Ben Leeming  2:09  
Sure. Well, it's hard to it's hard not to make things relevant to my research. This is kind of tangentially related, I guess I've always been absolutely fascinated [by] history, especially my interest in colonial Mexico goes back about 20 years now to when I was doing graduate work at Harvard. But not only have I lived my whole life in Massachusetts, I have nine different family [lines]. My mother's and my father's side, whose history in New England goes all the way back to the 17th century, and a few of them to the so called Puritan great migration of the 1630s or so. And those roots are, are they mean something to be come with a very complex, a complex history that is not without its, its blemishes? I'm sure I haven't researched my family history, totally extensively, it's kind of a new project for me. And I, I'm finding it a very interesting process in, I devote my independent scholarship to, and I'm trying to really remain open about understanding my own past and my positionality in terms of, of that past, as a historian and as a teacher, and just as a citizen. So, yeah, fun. Been around for quite a long time in this part of the world.

Claire Lavarreda  3:48  
That's really, I mean, that's --one-- really cool that you can trace all the way back to that point. And I think it's also really neat to be able to do a family genealogy and out of curiosity, are there like local archives that you've been consulting to do that? Or has it been something like Ancestry? Yeah.

Ben Leeming  4:08  
Yeah, it's mostly mostly that my mother has done a quite a lot of genealogical research. So she's done quite a bit. You know, I'm I, in terms of my own investigation of that. It's kind of just starting, and so no, a lot of that yet...

Claire Lavarreda  4:27  
Forthcoming. That'll be exciting.

Ben Leeming  4:29  
Yes, forthcoming. Yes.

Claire Lavarreda  4:32  
So transitioning into some of the research questions I had for you. I know you already briefly stated your education, your work experience. I know you are currently the chair of history at the River School in Weston. Would you mind just talking a little bit more about sort of your journey to where you are now, some of your majors, if at any point, you changed your mind -- anything like that? Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Leeming  4:54  
It's kind of a long sort of circuitous path. I mean, I kind of stumbled into education as a one that are falling in love with both teaching and being in the classroom with high school age students. And you know it that is something that from a very, very early moment in my career, I knew that that that's a lot of joy. And I found it a really, truly wonderful career. And the river school, you know, it, I've stayed there for all of this time, because it's a truly remarkable community of really passionate and wonderful colleagues and kids are great, and a program. A career I so I majored in art history at Tufts University. So I came into rivers, teaching art history for a sabbatical fill in for one year. And then when that person returned from their, from their sabbatical, I sort of transitioned into teaching in the history department. And I realized really quickly that although my art history background gave me some grounding in history, there was primarily Western history. And I really felt the need for more education in straight history. And so and Esther's program through Harvard Extension School, which is part of their division, division, of continuing education, and it was one of the few programs that I can find in the Boston area that allowed me to pursue Master's studies on a part time basis, allowing me to keep my job and continue and chip away at my master's degree, over a number of years, I think it was six or seven years. During those years, I happen to take a course I think it was in 2002, or 2003. And I think it was titled Mesoamerican Civilizations, and it was taught by the Harvard Art Fash with his good friend, and historian of religions, David Carrasco. And through that sort of dynamic duo, those are they're extremely charismatic personalities, and I fell under their sway. And I fell, I became enchanted with religion and time period in history, became very interested in that. And because I've always been interested in colonial history, it was particularly the contact period that really grabbed my attention. To me, it was so fascinating to kind of observe and to study, two civilizations completely separated from each other came together and what happened in that kind of deeply contested and violent and tumultuous interaction. And as someone who has also always been curious about the history of religion, in particular pillar, I was particularly enchanted and interested in how the Roman Catholic Church through its missionaries sought to engage with indigenous language and religion to try to translate Christianity for indigenous American audiences. And in some sort of process I, I think it was Debbie Carrasco, who, who talked about the Nahautl language, which prior to the Spanish invasion had been the kind of lingua franca of the Aztec empire and was a language that was spoken all over Mesoamerica in text or Sheikha. And when the when the Aztec empire was toppled the Spanish crown and the Catholic Church both decided to use Nahuatl as one of their primary languages, both for civic affairs, but they shouldn't, and an indoctrination and I learned that this language, which I had had really honestly never heard of before, or never thought about, had resulted because because it was adopted by the church and the state resulted in a massive documentary corpus of writing and many, many different genres in this language, and frankly, and other indigenous languages. And it really struck me as a fascinating thing that there was this time period, which has been so well studied for 500 years. And yet it's the story has been told almost exclusively for Spanish. And yet there existed this corpus of documentary, this documentary corpus in indigenous languages that was just beginning to be studied by scholars. through translation and analysis and publication, and it was really beginning to retell that whole period. And to add many indigenous voices into our understanding of that of that time period, it's really had a profound impact on the historiography of the contact period in Middle America. So, just as a out of curiosity, I find begin to study now what in my free time, and I very, very quickly discovered an absolute passion for this beautiful language, which is so different was so different and is so different than was fell down that rabbit hole. And, and really went deep. And I spent a number of years just kind of picking away on my own, learning the language and exploring some of this colonial documentation. And eventually, that scholars who were were actually actively using the language in their research and publication. I connected with a couple in particular who took me under their wing and, and acted as kind of informal tutors. And then in 2009, I decided that I was going to enroll and I enrolled in a two month intensive summer language program in Zacatecas, Mexico, which is, continues to be hosted by the Instituto de Investigación en Ciencia y Tecnología de Zacatecas. [It] also has affiliates in the United States of America. And I spent two months learning in a classroom from from instructors, which included indigenous tutors, who were there to help me try to understand the Nahuatl of their home region of the Huasteca of Veracruz. And it was by the end of that summer that I had decided that that I was going to pursue PhD studies because I really was determined to hone my language skills and to gain the [inaudible] and the to write and publish my own work, analyzing these remarkable sources. So in 2010, I began PhD studies, I had sought out the direction of one scholar in particular who I had over the past few they become of her work, her name is Louise Burkhart. And she is really the foremost authority on the this kind of intercultural dialogue between mendicant missionaries and indigenous people in this early colonial... [she's] written some very important works, you know, that are really touchstones in this field. So I really wanted to study with her. And I was very fortunate that she was (A) close by or relatively close by in Albany and (B) she was willing to take me on as a somewhat non-traditional graduate student. Four years later, I completed my PhD and have been actively working as an independent scholar since then, in addition to, of course, teaching at the River School. So that's in a in a kind of broad brushstrokes. That's [it].

Claire Lavarreda  13:46  
And I think I just wanted to comment and say that I think it's amazing that obviously, not only are you so clearly passionate about the subject, but also having the fortitude to keep going with the subject and the language learning and the community over such a long span of time. And I think that's just something I think is really great is that you really have to love something to pursue it that diligently for that amount of time. And I just think that...

Ben Leeming  14:13  
I tell my wife that it's helped me avoid a midlife crisis, it gave, this gave me some real direction and purpose and, and, and is -- it I hope it's clear that, that I -- that my approach to this is, although it began in a kind of informal and I began as an autodidact -- this is in no way a hobby for me, I take this extremely seriously. And although I have a a kind of institutional affiliation, and that, you know, I'm not a not associated or employed by institute of higher learning. You know, this is something that is I'm very much at the heart of my perfect being. And I continue to, to learn and to grow. And, you know, do this work, and hopefully, you know, have an impact on on others by making these sources available.

Claire Lavarreda  15:19  
And I think, you know, how you emphasize taking it serious. And it being the core of, you know, who you are, and what you do, I think really represents, you know, how much you care about, you know, sort of turning the historical narrative on its head, seeing the indigenous voices in the history and everything that has sort of been off balance. So I just think that is a really interesting sort of discussion. And sort of on that note, then, just to talk a little bit about your recently published book from two years ago, Aztec Antichrist: Performing the Apocalypse in Early Colonial Mexico. I know it touches upon Indigenous Christianities as well as a bunch of other themes. And I know it's impossible to summarize an entire book in in one interview. So if you just want to be able to give, you know, sort of a broader summary or what some of these Christianities look like, that would be great.

Ben Leeming  16:17  
Story, yeah, this is a story I love to tell. And for anybody who may be listening to the I narrate this, this story in the prologue to the book, which is a short introduction to how I came to write this particular book. But in a in a nutshell, in 2014, I was doing research for my -- I wanted to find some materials that either had never been examined, studied, published, and or only lightly so. And so I was kind of making the rounds of various archives and collections. You know, resources were limited, at you know, I don't have a lot of funding for -- I didn't have a lot of funding for my graduate work. So I was kind of driving myself all over the place. But anyway, I had made the journey to the Upper West Side of New York, to the Hispanic Society of America, where I thought that there were some interesting colonial Nahuatl materials and I ended up finding, buried in a thick notebook of miscellaneous Christian texts that had been copied into this notebook by an indigenous person sometime in the mid to late sixteenth century -- ended up finding to very early religious pays -- scripts for religious plays -- and religious theater in the 16th century was one of the most popular forms of work or media forms for indoctrination by the Catholic church. The Catholic friars had introduced medieval morality plays and passion plays and other kinds of religious theater into their their sort of toolkit or their repertoire for teaching indigenous people about Christianity. And, you know, unlike some of their of, of teaching, like sermons and going to Mass and saying the Catechism, which native people really didn't like that much, they really embraced theater. And there's all kinds of interesting thoughts on why that might have been so but the the fact of the matter, middle years, 18th century or the end of the 16th century, for sure. Many, if not most, indigenous communities had their own -- had adopted their own passion plays or epiphany plays or other kinds of religious theater that had really become a sort of central social role and practice in, in their, in their lives. And this was one of one of the most important ways that Christianity not only became kind of rooted in indigenous communities, but it was one of the vectors through which native people reinterpreted and appropriated Christianity, resulting in the or multiplication of what I'm -- I and others -- referred to as Christianities and what I mean by that is that rather than thinking of, of just one kind of global or monolithic, native Christianity that encompasses all different forms of practices, what we find really adapted Christianity to their local, their local tastes, and and so how Christianity was practiced in this one pueblo might look somewhat different from how was practiced in other pueblos, and the text production by indigenous people in indigenous languages. And I should, I should reiterate that all of this religious theater is being done in indigenous languages by native peoples, for native audiences that these texts were one of the primary ways native people kind of plead their own. It's one of the things that I find most interesting about this particular area of study. But anyway, I found these two plays. And they had a very interesting and juicy subject matter. It was the medieval legend of the Antichrist and the end of the world and the final judgment, and the, the just absolutely stories, which are acted by a host of one of your 30 characters. And it was such a fascinating find. My advisor, Louise Burkhart had actually just a couple of years before finished publishing with her colleague, Barry Cell, and others, volumes of all of the known, or most of the known colonial Nahuatl theater texts. It's a relatively small but important genre of colonial religious documentation, there's about 30 to 40 of these scripts that survive, and she had no idea of the Aztec antichrist. It's really, I don't know, it's quite fortuitous that that, that I was able to find them and write about them. And so so now we have two more, though the book, the book is, contains the full transcription to scripts as the number of chapters of analysis. And yeah, that's hard to believe that, you know that that project began in 2014. And by 2022, it was out in a book and now I'm just enjoying kind of talking about it as even as other projects...

Claire Lavarreda  22:06  
Yes, yeah. No, and I think it's great that you managed to find two that were not like previously known about, I mean, that's a huge, I feel like there's a huge...

Ben Leeming  22:15  
I was really lucky, it was... Well, it was a really a quite the luck of the draw, although I will say one of the greatest. Our gaining facility with indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, is that there is this documentary corpus that is so little known. And one of the reasons it's little, little known is that not enough skills to kind of decide or to determine what these documents are and what they say and what their significance is. I should say, there aren't enough people outside of indigenous communities. In fact, none of these languages are -- very few of these languages are dead. Nahuatl is just the largest indigenous language that we know. Today, there's like one and a half to 2 million native speakers. The sad reality is that many of them, most of them, perhaps, don't really know that this this documentary corpus exists. And, you know, one of the things that I'm finding ways to connect with indigenous scholars and indigenous people to share some of these remarkable works of frankly, works of literature, some of the earliest works of indigenous American literature, that that come from the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. So, yes, having having more people who are learning these indigenous languages, and being able to contribute to this, this exciting work of recovery is is really necessary. Yeah,

Claire Lavarreda  24:03  
It's huge. And I think that sort of tied into my next question for you, which was about studying the language itself. I know you've studied this for almost 20 years now. So we've already discussed sort of what drew you to the language. Can you describe what the learning experience itself was? Like? Were there any challenges or did it come to you easier than you expected? Yeah.

Ben Leeming  24:29  
Oh, no, this is for those of us who, whose native languages is English or any other Romance language or even Indo-European language? Well, I'll I'll stick to Romance languages. Nahuatl is this, it seems to speakers of English to be very complex and difficult to understand how the syntax works and things like that. In terms of how to learn it, there's a kind of a normal path. And then there's my path. I mean, the normal language non-native people is by taking classes like the EDS Summer Institute, which is still offered at the University of Utah, where one can gain extensive classroom experience with a language. So it also offers courses during the semester. So one can -- advanced from beginning to intermediate to advanced -- both in the colonial variants of knowledge and the modern variants spoken in the Huasteca region. So the normal path of learning the language is just a lot of classroom work. And for some people, actually traveling to parts of Mexico where the language is still spoken, and engaging in projects there, to engage with native speakers and, and to try to learn further, you know, it used to be that programs would kind of go to a native community, and spend a week kind of observing and trying their language skills out by by interacting with them, but I'm really happy to, to learn that, that that's evolving and becoming more of a reciprocal kind of relationship. And, you know, in the past, I think for some people, it felt a little exploitative, a little bit like these sorts of people were coming in and sort of taking from us and not really giving much in return. And I know that in certain circumstances now, with the leadership of indigenous scholars. People like me, who go into these communities are actually doing things like teaching English classes, to give back to the community and in exchange, kind of hearing and learning and engaging with people speaking the language in a sort of, you know, in that kind of immersive way. So your way to learn it pays to do that, by the way, I mean, there are ways to learn the many of the various Mayan languages like K'iche, or Cakchiquel, or Tzotzil. There's, you can take some Zapotec courses, there's courses and other languages as well. There have really interesting documentary corpora, as well, which need to be interpreted not what is the has the largest of the documentary, corpus? Corporate, but yeah, there's, there's lots of them out there. Yeah. And I'd love for many years. And, for me, as I've already said, you know, I began as an autodidact, and then worked with some tutors, and then did the formal, you know, intensive program in the summer, and then really, after that, it was just a lot of hard work. You know, just kind of like anything else, practice, practice, practice. And

Claire Lavarreda  28:07  
Absolutely. And I know you were talking about how things have sort of changed a bit you go in, or these programs go into places, and they're a little more, you know, reciprocal, not just, you know, extracting and leaving or somebody in isn't compensated. So specifically, you talked about teaching English classes, what are some other ways you've built a relationship with the communities you work with? And you probably you've worked with several, but what and where were these communities?

Ben Leeming  28:36  
Well, so to be to be clear, I have not taught English classes, I've never journeyed to an indigenous community due to personal and family reasons. I really haven't done a lot of traveling. And that is something that I see as a -- that can be seen as a handicap. I do think it's very important for people who are are working with these materials and working as historians in this area, to have relationships with people who are from these these areas. I have sought out and maintained relationships with Mexican scholars and indigenous scholars. The conference, so we have, those of us who were engaged in scholarship, relating to now was not what people and the Nahuatl language we have in a professional association called the Association of Nahuatl Scholars. We've met every year since 2008. It's a small annual conference. It's a very diverse group of folks that include people from Europe and from Mexico, from the US, Native people, non native people, and it's a very fruitful kind of interchange that takes place every year. You're at this these meetings and so I have developed relationships through that. But it's, it's, it's something that's, that's complicated. And I alluded earlier to my positionality, as a New Englander as someone who is a descendant of colonists, myself, someone who is very aware of the trauma that colonialism. communities, both here in New England and all over the Americas, you know, my positionality, as a, as a white scholar, an academic, working with indigenous language materials, I have, I have really just tried to be open, hearing other people, thoughts about how I fit into the conversation, I've tried to remain respectful and open about my sources, and to pursue relationships with people who can help me gain insight might not be on and, and I and I do hope that my work brings honor to indigenous communities. You know, and again, this kind of relevant to personal and family reasons, which I choose not to go into at this particular time, but my ability to, to kind of leave New England, but I'm entering into kind of a stage of my life where I'm hoping to be able to do some more traveling and and get out a little bit more. But I guess, you know, just to kind of tie this thread up, I'm, I tried to accept that I have much to learn, even as I am trying to use the Skills I have acquired to spread knowledge about a particular time in history and a particular people who have tended to be left out of the conversation. And I hope that I can do, too, to correct that.

Claire Lavarreda  32:10  
And I think, you know, what I sort of liked that you brought up is that I think traveling isn't always accessible to everyone. And I think especially non traditional scholars, or people returning or for any other sort of reason. And I really liked that you talk about how there are different ways to go about building connections, whether it's with other scholars, or through associations and meetings and doing the work itself. I think that's also a really good reminder for anybody that will will watch this of you know, if you're thinking oh, I can't fly out to the country, you don't necessarily have to still be doing really something important and making this connection. So thank you for sharing that. And then I think the next question I had and so probably your your book might be the answer, I was going to ask what are some key projects or moments that stand out in your memory? Or were really important to you? Besides the book, or is the probably the book is the main one. I know that if that was me, I'd be like, yeah, the book?

Ben Leeming  33:07  
Well, it's, yeah, no, I mean, that's certainly important, but definitely not the most important thing. I think, for me, the most important thing has been the relationships that I've developed with people over the years and the connections I've made with other scholars and people who are interested in these subjects, whether that be through conferences, or through small groups, whether it be through language classes, or or just people I meet online, it's definitely the relationships have been really the touchstone for me. And what I find most rewarding about all of this is sharing. There's what I'm doing and what I'm finding and hearing what they're doing and what they're finding as well. So, those kinds of interactions and relationships are really forefront for sure. If I had to mention a couple other things, I guess I would say that in 2021, I was awarded a fellowship for a year of full time work on on my next project, which I was very honored and excited to to receive and so I was on leave from teaching and 2120 2021 2022 and I worked on completing a an English trends. Very, very important. Collection of missionary writing was actually it's a collection of sermons that were composed under the direction of the eminent Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun, who most people who are familiar with early colonial Mexican history will associate with Codex Florentine the best known primary source from early colonial Mexico. Sahagun in the 15, late 1530s into the 1540s had worked with some of his native students at the Imperial College of the Holy Cross set in plateau just north of Mexico City to compose a series of sermons for each Sunday in the church year and the festival of a number of important saints. These are completely unknown luck. Well, the there's Latin, you know, quotes from the Bible, obviously, woven in there. But given given how important this particular author, and this manuscript being really one of the earliest surviving extensive collections of religious writing in knowledge, it seemed, to me a really important and glaring hole in what we currently have available to us as scholars, and so on. And, you know, we're a few years on here, and I'm actually just polishing up the final revisions before turning it over to the publisher, at the end of the summer, and that will come out. And that's not going to be a monograph or heavy work of a really critical translation, where every single sermon is presented in transcription and translation with extensive notes, I have written an introductory study to precede it, which will help contextualize the the manuscript and assertions for interested readers is more kind of like a reference book, that will probably be, you know, spend a lot of time on the shelf in the library, perhaps. But it's, you know, it's a really, it's a really important historical primary source. And it was really exciting to be a part of, to be a part of bringing that to, to the public. So it's been that that's been a big thing. And then the last, you know, exciting, I guess, sort of noteworthy project I've been involved in is actually I just got back from teaching a two week graduate summer workshop, through Dumbarton Oaks and Princeton University, to help us a cohort of graduate students to become acquainted or better acquainted with these missionary writings in indigenous languages of Mesoamerica. And we spent some marvelous time hands on with tremendous resources in both of those collections, looking at books and manuscripts from the 16th and 17th. A really special experience of great students and great fellow instructors, and some really, really amazing books and manuscripts. Kind of kind of doesn't get any better than that for me, honestly.

Claire Lavarreda  37:40  
And it sounds like you have a lot of work and projects going on. So kudos to you for being able to juggle those are busy. And the manuscript so yeah...

Ben Leeming  37:51  
It is a juggling it is a juggling match. Yeah.

Claire Lavarreda  37:53  
Yeah. I think I think we made a joke about it, maybe spending a lot of time in the library on the shelf. But I can imagine that would really be helpful for students. I know someone, like I would definitely pick up the book and be like, Oh, thank God, I don't have to try and read the handwriting myself right now, or something like I can kind of get introduced into this. Yes. So I that's really exciting. And congratulations again. And then I think for my next couple questions, you've spoken already a little bit about how your identity and your own heritage sort of informed informs your work and studies and how you navigate that. So I think moving to my next question, this is a little bit different. What in your opinion, sort of distinguishes ethnohistory from standard history? If there even is a standard history, I know it's a little confusing.

Ben Leeming  38:45  
For sure, out there, but, you know, I like to think of ethnohistory as kind of you imagine a Venn diagram that includes the field of history and the field of anthropology that's in the kind of overlap between those two fields on some level. Ethnohistorians are also historians, they could be known as historical anthropologists, but essentially, whereas a cultural anthropologist might study living, indigenous peoples and cultures, an ethnohistorian would study historical indigenous peoples and cultures. So from the past, as opposed to some of the theory and methodology of anthropology to do history. And in particular, focusing on culture. So, so ethnohistory and I should add that, you know, it's a it's a very interdisciplinary field so we could add to our Venn diagram we could add some other things as well. That's actually one of the things I really really enjoy about it is that it is so interdisciplinary and, you know, if you go to the annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, which is kind of the largest professional organization for ethnic historians in the US, you pull from many different fields doing many different kinds of work. And it's a so it's a very rich, collaborative interdisciplinary field of study for my particular, kind of ethnohistory, a philological study of writings that were done in indigenous languages in colonial times. So looking at this kind of documentary record, through translation and analysis of indigenous language, materials, the kind of work that people that I, I follow and interact with do.

Claire Lavarreda  40:53  
Yeah, thank you for first sort of explaining that a little bit, I think, because there's so many different types of history and approaches, you can have a little a little blurry. I think, a sort of follow up question I had to that you explained it a little bit talking about how it helps you, you know, sort of use and interpret sources? In what ways do you feel like the the maybe anthropology approaches and ethnohistory have sort of contributed to your work or giving you sort of different insight than other branches of history has?

Ben Leeming  41:27  
Right? Well, so my PhD is in anthropology, in cultural anthropology. My master's is in history, and I teach history. So I, the line is pretty blurry between the two for me, but I guess what I would say that my training and topology has shaped these sources, because I'm primarily interested in what happens when cultures come in contact with each other, you know, I'm interested in the kind of power dynamics that shape that contact, interested in the way languages set up appropriate and borrow and change and mix and sort of transform each other. In this kind of contact, I'm specifically interested in the way religion changes. And, and so kind of emphasize change in culture transformation, how cultures change, that's, you know, in my mind, the kind of anthropology that I'm bringing, that I'm bringing to the work that I do, and, you know, there's some more kind of specific sorts of medical concepts that I incorporate into some of the work that I do. But that's in a nutshell, how how those two fields kind of come together in the work that I do.

Claire Lavarreda  42:57  
Yeah. And I think that's just, I think it's also sort of inspiring for people who maybe come from different, you know, fields or want to merge together something like history and anthropology. I know, at Northeastern, we have like Public History routes, or World History routes. And so being able to sort of mix these different branches together, I think, realizing that it's a possibility, I think can be really motivating for people who might want to get into the field.

Ben Leeming  43:25  
It, it presents a difficulty because as you know, academia, academia is still so siloed and you know, the kind of disciplinary borders and boundaries, as I understand it are still quite firm and interdisciplinary work is not necessarily that easy to do. There are demands from one's from each different discipline that work be done in a particular way, or use particular sources or methods or theories. And, you know, one of the things I love about Northeastern is their long history of promoting World History. A field you I'm sure, you know, that World History wasn't always accepted as an academic discipline. But, you know, universities like like Northeastern and others have really promoted heavily. And so you know, it might be at Northeastern, there's more openness, history, kind of, I kind of think that unfortunately, in today's the way academia is today, one has to kind of be an historian, or an anthropologist, and that's, that can be tricky.

Claire Lavarreda  44:41  
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that is something good to think about and hopefully, can be challenged, I think, in the future, because I think there's so much value in that sort of interdisciplinary, and it's something I've run into is like, you sort of have to label yourself as something whether you're an early Americanist or your colonial historian or you something and it's at some Wouldn't the lines seem kind of arbitrary...

Ben Leeming  45:03  
 Well, and it's especially true for me, because I am a high school educator. I'm not a professor at a college, so I, you know, the people don't really necessarily know what to make of me. And, you know, I will just here insert a little plug. Listening to this, you and may be in a, in a particular stage of their career where they're still finishing their PhD, and they haven't yet gotten their first job, that secondary education can be a tremendously rewarding and fruitful place to, to make one, although we do not have research written into our job description, we do not have the same restrictions of discipline of tenure, you know, publishing or perishing kind of approach to things, all of my small portion at my own pace, according to what projects I want to do. And, you know, I have to make a lot of creative use of my summers and the other times where I have to work, and it definitely is quite a bit of a juggling match. But it's been a phenomenal career for me. And I think it you know, as the job market continues to look very complex and challenging for folks that they ought not to overlook secondary education. I myself teach at a private secondary school and, you know, private secondary schools are very much like small liberal arts colleges, in many ways. Pretty heavy teaching load. And, and so one might have to navigate that anyway. But it's a really fantastic for me, it's been fantastic, although it does lead some people to kind of not be able to figure me out or know how to place me. So, you know, as I publish more, or, as I will, you know, they get a sense of, of my ability to contribute to the conversation, and hopefully this, this might make room for more independent scholars or secondary educators to do similar kinds of things.

Claire Lavarreda  47:21  
Absolutely. And, and I do definitely feel like there's a, there's sort of a bias of if you aren't, you know, going the traditional tenured professor track, or like an Ivy, whatever, then, you know, you you don't know what you're talking about, or maybe you're not a real scholar, which is so far from the truth. So I think that's just a good a good discussion to have.

Ben Leeming  47:40  
Yeah, yeah. It's important. It's a It's shouldn't be overlooked, potential career path. Absolutely.

Claire Lavarreda  47:49  
And I think, sort of transitioning into one of the last questions I had for you. How does cultural preservation factor into your work? Do NAGPRA or general repatriate F repatriation efforts seem common? In some of the work you've been doing? I know maybe from a historian angle, it might be less present. But maybe from an anthropology angle, it might be more sort of your input on that?

Ben Leeming  48:15  
Sure, yeah. Well, because I'm not I don't work with a artifacts or human remains or things like that. I'm not sure NAGPRA with, it doesn't really play a role in anything that I do. I would say there there is, you know, the, the same, the same processes and problems by which many artifacts came to occupy the collections in and universities around the US. And Europe applies to how many of these cultural treasures in documentary form came to leave Mexico and parts of Mesoamerica as well, you have some of the most precious treasures in the cultural heritage of, say, Mexico, that are in the collections of England and the United States of America. And in some circumstances, you know, these these left in in very unethical or what we would consider to be unethical ways today. And so, you know, I don't I haven't really heard a lot of talk about repatriation, but I know there have been... some of the most famous documents of, of sort of pre Columbian Mesoamerica, for example, these spectacular and very rare, painted codices that were sort of stolen away, you know, after contact and are ranging from the Vatican to the National Library of France, you know, let's say, I know that there are there have been efforts from Mexico to have those things returned. But you know, I--  so really to answer your question, it doesn't really factor all that much, you know, exists in a slightly different category, I guess, in some ways, then human remains would, for example. And in many cases, the indigenous communities who produced these documents, do not know about them. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is something that is really a shame. And there are folks that are working towards bringing knowledge of these materials back to those indigenous communities. And I'm thinking in particular, of the efforts of scholars like Kelly McDonough at University of Texas, Austin, or John Sullivan and Justina Wurst, who have done work connecting communities with these documents that, you know, are so important. And I think that's incredibly laudable. And I, myself would love to be a part of that I have really tried really hard, and I continue to try to look more about the identity of this indigenous person who copied these two plays into this notebook of, of texts. You know, it would be it would be a dream of mine to be able to reconnect that community with this remarkable native intellectual who in this some really, really interesting writing and, you know, but but it's very difficult. That's very, yeah, challenge.

Claire Lavarreda  51:36  
Definitely, not only, I think just sort of tracing those connections, I think would be extremely difficult. But it would be amazing. If it was possible, just something to add to your already massive list.

Ben Leeming  51:52  
Oh, that one's always on my to do list. You know, hopefully, someday I will be able to figure out who or where this person was from

Claire Lavarreda  52:00  
Absolutely. And I believe that was the end of my sort of giant list of questions for you. I sort of wanted to give you the space to if you had anything else you wanted to add or shout out or plug your own work or anything upcoming.

Ben Leeming  52:15  
I think I've done enough of plugging my own work. You've given me ample opportunities to do that. No, I think that that pretty much covers it for me. I mean, I would, I would just add it earlier, I really, for me, the interpersonal personal aspect of what I do is the most rewarding and I love sharing my work and your listeners if they're interested, if you know if they want to contact me. I'm easily reachable. It'd be bleeming@gmail.com, online, which lists all of my publications and the stuff I'm working on. And I'd be very interested in connecting with anyone who wanted to talk about knowledge or ethnohistory or any any of the topics we've covered today.

Claire Lavarreda  53:03  
Well, thank you so much. And yeah, I can definitely vouch for if anybody's listening and would like to contact Ben. He has been in contact with me for like, over like a little over a year now. Just from connecting on H-Net. He's super generous. So thank you so much, and I will stop the recording now. Okay,