Prof. Terukina specializes in the transatlantic Hispanic world (Spain & the New World) during the early modern period (16th and 17th centuries). His teaching and research pay due attention to the relations between pre-modern disciplines, political context, and cultural production. He is the author of El imperio de la virtud. Grandeza mexicana (1604) de Bernardo de Balbuena y el discurso criollo novohispano [The Empire of Virtue: Bernardo de Balbuena’s Mexican Grandeur (1604) and Creole Discourse in Colonial Mexico], an interdisciplinary study of one of the most canonical pieces of cultural production in Colonial Mexico that invites us to reassess the role that Balbuena and Grandeza mexicana play in the cultural history of present-day Mexico.
In an interview with the W&M Alumni Magazine, Prof. Terukina explains that he is “impressed with the intellectual curiosity of William & Mary students.” [PDF: WMAM_Fall2017] In his remarks upon receiving this honor at a special ceremony, Prof. Terukina explained that the award belongs to his students, “for unfailingly embarking with me in the scary, unsettling adventure of questioning all we know and how we know it, and hence accepting our historical contingency. I’d like to think that my students find the chance to design themselves anew with even stronger convictions, with deliberate agency, and with a clear understanding of their role as political animals.”