Dr. Garry Sparks

Biography

Garry Sparks joined Princeton’s Department of Religion in Fall 2023. He focuses on ethnohistorical understandings of theological production in the Americas, particularly Indigenous peoples. His areas of research include critical histories of Christian thought, religions of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, and religion in Latin America, as well as theories of religion and culture. He specifically studies periods of contact between Native Mesoamericans and Iberian missionaries in the sixteenth century, along with current religious movements such as liberation theologies, “Indian” theology (teología india), and Latin American Protestantism, revitalization Indigenous traditionalism. His publications include 'Americas’ Theologies: Early Sources of Post-Contact Indigenous Religion' (Oxford University Press, 2017) and 'Rewriting Maya Religion: Domingo de Vico, K’iche’ Maya Intellectuals, Theologia Indorum' (University Press of Colorado, 2019). Currently, he is collaborating with Dr. Frauke Sachse on a critical edition of the Library of Congress Kislak 1015 manuscript, tentatively titled “Pastoral Fieldnotes: Sixteenth-century Handbook of the Maya Highlands” and coordinating critical translations of Mayan-language manuscripts into English and Spanish.

Research Interests