Josefrayn Sanchez-Perry, PhD
Assistant Professor
Josefrayn Sánchez-Perry is an historian of religion, whose research brings together early modern Mesoamerica, the history of science, and religious studies theories and methods. His work has been published in the journals Religion and Material Religion. His forthcoming monograph, Incense and Performance: The Lives of Mexica Ritual Specialists (University of Arizona Press 2026) details the journeys of two specialists at the time of the Conquest, establishing how societal, human, and more-than-human agents weaved the meaning of collecting and offering. His second monograph project looks more closely at collecting. Tentatively titled Broken Pots, Healing Vessels: The World of Mexica Archaeology, Taxonomies, and Medicines, explores taxonomies for collecting through the metaphor of potsherd, which interlaced the value of ancient broken pots, objectified gestation and fertility for women, and arranged naming conventions for fauna and flora.
His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, the American Academy of Religion, and various university-sponsored fellowships and grants. Sánchez-Perry was selected as a member of the 2025-2027 cohort of Young Scholars in American Religion, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indianapolis University.
Education
Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin
Research Interests
Religion in the Americas; Medical Humanities and History of Science; Native American & Indigenous traditions; Mesoamerican religions; Colonialism and Mission Studies; Nahuatl and K’iche’ Languages
Courses Taught
THEO107 Introduction to Religious Studies
THEO 280 Religion, Alchemy, and the History of Science
THEO 318 History of Christianity-Renaissance to Modern
THEO 353 Indigenous Science and Religion in Mexico
Publications/Research Listings
Monographs
2026 Incense and Performance: The Lives of Mexica Ritual Specialists (University of Arizona Press).
Articles
2025 “Ordinary Things: Classifying Nahua Religion in Colonial Mexico” special issue on the Social Order of Things, Materialist Methods for Comparing Religion in Religion volume 55, issue 2, 493-506.
2025 “What to Call a Tlamacazqui? Nahuatl and Spanish Translations from the Florentine Codex” in Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief volume 21, issue 2, 160-183.
2022 “Why Does it Matter How we Translate Religious Concepts in Indigenous Traditions” in Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes, edited by Natalie Avalos and Molly Bassett, (Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing), 107-109.
Awards
2025-2027 Young Scholars in American Religion, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University.
2025 AAR Individual Research Grant for “Without Superstition: An Unlikely History of the Telpochcalli," American Academy of Religion.
2024 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Newberry Library.