Events

Claudia Brittenham, Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago, will speak on, “In Nepapan Tlacah: Reimagining Ancient Mesoamerican Identities.” This will be followed by a reception beginning at 5:30 p.m.

About the Talk
Ancient Mesoamerican identity was complex and multifaceted. Fiercely local, identity was tied to community, lineage, place, and history. The ways that ancient Mesoamerican people understood difference do not correspond entirely to modern conceptions of race or ethnicity, which were beginning to take shape precisely at the time of the Spanish invasion of the Americas. Using colonial textual and pictorial sources as well as pre-invasion works of art and material culture, this talk explores how Mesoamerican history might look different if it departed from emic categories of identity rather than the colonial frameworks that we have inherited—and how this might help re-integrate Mesoamerican history with the rest of Native North America.

About the Speaker
Claudia Brittenham is Professor in the Department of Art History and the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. She is also Director of the Center for Latin American Studies. Her research focuses on the art of Mesoamerica, with interests in the materiality of art and the politics of style. She is the author of Unseen Art: Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica, as well as The Murals of Cacaxtla: The Power of Painting in Ancient Central Mexico; The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak (with Mary Miller); and Veiled Brightness: A History of Ancient Maya Color (with Stephen Houston and colleagues). Her next book focuses on the interconnectedness of the ancient Mesoamerican world.