Did you know that TCU houses over one hundred pre-Columbian artifacts? And that a former university employee stole over 100 of them? Join us as Dr. Alex Hidalgo and students from his graduate-level class provide the in-depth story of the theft, including which artifacts were never recovered and what could have happened to them. They will also discuss how institutions such as TCU come to own pre-Columbian artifacts in the first place. True crime fans won’t want to miss this one!

Alex Hidalgo is a social and cultural historian of colonialism in Latin America. He is Associate Professor of History at TCU and the author of Trail of Footprints: A History of Indigenous Mapmaking from Viceregal Mexico. His articles have appeared in academic journals and media outlets, including the American Historical Review, Ethnohistory, Hispanic American Historical Review, and the Washington Post. Hidalgo’s research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and the Library of Congress and he is currently a member of the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography.

* NOTE: This program will be held at TCU’s Betsy & Steve Palko Hall, located at 3000 Bellaire Drive North, Lecture Room 130, due to the library serving as a voting location for the November elections.

Click here to register for Zoom!