https://hcommons.org/members/giovannisalazarcalvo/

https://okstate.academia.edu/GiovanniSalazarCalvo

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&user=EOQOfMAAAAAJ

Giovanni F. Salazar Calvo is an Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages & Literatures at Oklahoma State University. He obtained his BA in Classical Philology at the University of Costa Rica, his MA in Spanish at Western Michigan University, and his Ph. D in Hispanic Cultural Studies at Michigan State University, under the direction of Dr. Rocío Quispe Agnoli. 

His research interests include Colonial Latin American literatures and cultures, Indigenous worldviews in Mesoamerica and the Andes, non-ordinary states of consciousness, psychoactive plants and ethnobotany, and the intertwining of religion and medicine in the context of medical humanities, among other areas of research.

He focuses on early modern studies, especially the transatlantic circulation of knowledge about medicine and religion, psychoactive plants, and shamanism among other vehicles of non-ordinary states of consciousness in Spain and colonial Mexico. He is intrigued about how native cosmologies and their insights about bodily, mental, and spiritual health appear in colonial literature, such as codices and conquest chronicles, and stays relevant in contemporary Mexican cultural artifacts, especially literature, but also visual art. 

He is currently working on a book manuscript about the portrait of psychoactive phármaka, such as datura, marihuana, peyote cactus, ololiuhqui (morning glory), and psychoactive mushrooms in works written in Spain and Colonial Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. He researches how works of natural and moral history intertwine European and Native ideas about health and religion in medical practices. He is interested in observing how these images constitute cultural systems of social organization in which medicine is practiced. This book challenges the traditional separation between moral and natural discourses by observing the attitude held by priests and doctors towards the phenomenon of inebriation among witches, sorcerers, medicine men, shamans, and Indigenous communities in Spain and New Spain.

He has also written an introduction and a preliminary critical study for Hipernatura: doce cuentos de ecoficción peruana, a collection of short stories written by members of Qhipa Pacha, a collective of Peruvian authors that are concerned with Peruvian futurism and ecofiction. In this work, he reflects on the role of human beings in a sustainable ecosystem in which plants engage in a symbiotic relationship with humans to generate peace. 

Additionally, he is the Assistant Editor/Production of the Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades (REGS)/Journal of Gender and Sexuality Studies (JGSS).  He has also conducted archival research at the National Archive of the Nation, and at the National Library in Mexico City. 

Research Interests:

Colonial Latin American Literatures and Cultures

Mexican Literatures and Cultures

Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica and the Andes

Non-ordinary States of Consciousness

Psychoactive Plants and Ethnobotany

Medical Humanities and Religious Studies

Classical Philology

Spanish as a Second Language