Javier Villa-Flores received his doctorate in Latin American history from the University of California, San Diego, and an undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. His work revolves around issues of religion, colonialism, performance studies, and the social history of language in colonial Mexico. His first book Carlo Ginzburg: The Historian as Theoretician (University of Guadalajara, 1995) offered an epistemological discussion of the historian's craft focusing on Carlo Ginzburg's work. His second book, Dangerous Speech: A Social History of Blasphemy in Colonial Mexico (University of Arizona Press, 2006) analyzes the representation, prosecution and punishment of blasphemous speech in New Spain from 1520 to 1700. He is also the author of several articles, book chapters, reviews, and encylopedia articles. Among his most recent publications are: "Wandering Swindlers: Imposture, Style, and the Inquisition's Pedagogy of Fear in Peripheral New Spain", Colonial Latin American Review 17:2 (2008), 251-272; "Religion, Politics, and Salvation: Latin American Millenarian Movements", special issue on "Religion and Politics", edited by Duane Corpis and Rachel Scharfman, Radical History Review 99 (Fall, 2007), 242-251; "Talking Through the Chest: Ventriloquism and Divination among African Slave Women in Colonial Mexico", Colonial Latin American Review 14:2, 299-321.; and "Voices from a Living Hell: Life, Death, and Salvation in a colonial Mexican Obraje", in Martin Nesvig, ed. Local Religion in Colonial Mexico (New Mexico University Press, 2006).