Derek S. Burdette

Derek Burdette is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Art + Art History the University of Florida, where he specializes in the arts of colonial Latin America, with a particular focus on the intersections of art and politics in New Spain. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Program, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Mellon Foundation, and the John Carter Brown Library. His past research has focused on the history of miraculous imagery in colonial Mexico City and the continued legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexican culture. He has published articles and essays on the problematic nature of maintaining miraculous imagery, the connection between miraculous statues and printed devotional manuals, the role of artists as expert witnesses and arbiters of miraculous materiality, and the adaptive re-use of colonial architecture within Mexico City’s contemporary art world. His first book, Miraculous Celebrity: The Christ of Ixmiquilpan and Colonial Piety in Mexico City, was published by the University of Texas Press Fall of 2025 with the University of Texas Press. He is currently at work on a new project about the connections between color and colonialism, which focuses on the history of indigo within the Spanish empire.