Main Focus
- History of Education
- Preaching and Evangelization
- Early Modern Art Theory
- Transatlantic Studies
- Indigenous and Postcolonial Theories and Methods
Research Project
Curriculum Vitae
Daniel Santiago Sáenz holds a BA in Religion and an MA
in Art History from Concordia University and is currently completing a PhD in
Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Comparative Literature at Columbia
University in the City of New York. His dissertation examines Franciscan
pedagogical practices and visual innovations in New Spain, with particular
attention to Diego Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana (1579). Central to
this project are the reshaping of word–image relations, the emphasis on the
body as a locus of proselytizing and legal discourses, and the role of
alphabetization as both a space of conquest and a site of survivance. He has
received fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. In 2024,
he was awarded Columbia’s Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, the
University’s highest recognition for innovation in pedagogy and design.