The 2018 Mesoamerica Meetings Symposium Program

Below is the complete list of speakers and talks of the Symposium: Mesoamerican Philosophies. For workshops see the separate tab for Workshop Information, Jan 9-11.

You can also download a complete PDF of the program and abstracts:

2018 Program and Abstracts (pdf | bytes)

Download Adobe Acrobat to access the pdfs on this page.

Thursday evening January 11th: Keynote Presentation

Davíd Carrasco, Harvard Divinity School
Cities that Say Everything You Must Think: Aztec Cosmovision, Templo Mayor and the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan

Friday January 12th: Symposium talks

Opening Remarks

James Maffie, University of Maryland
Human and Other-Than-Human Reciprocal Co-participation in the Ongoing Recreation of the 5th Age

Elliot Lopez-Finn, The University of Texas at Austin
The Paper House: Amacalli Deities and Embodied Architecture in the Postclassic Period

Nicholas Hopkins, Independent Scholar
The Nature of the Material World in Maya Philosophy

Osiris Sinuhé González Romero, Leiden University
Wisdom, Language and Worldview in Nahuatl Philosophy

Zachary Hruby, Northern Kentucky University
The Secret Life of Eccentrics and Other Sacred Stones: Going Beyond the ‘Use-Life’ Concept in Understanding the Uses and Lives of Classic Maya Sastuns

Barbara MacLeod, Independent Scholar
A Mam For All Seasons: The Ontological Anchoring of Late Classic Maya Alliances in Naj Tunich Cave, Guatemala

Michael Carrasco, Florida State University
The Sacred Ecologies of the Mesoamerican Image

Karl Taube, The University of California-Riverside
Bringing the Rain: The Origin of the Gods of Rain and Lightning in Formative Mesoamerica

Question and Answer Session 

Friday evening January 12th: exhibition on the Codex Borgia

Visual Arts Center Galleries, Private Exhibition and Reception: The Codex Borgia. 

Saturday January 13th: Symposium Talks

David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin
Conflated Identities: Rulership, Reflected Names and Multiple States of Being in Ancient Mesoamerica

Patrick Hajovsky, Southwestern University
Luster and Essence: One’s Fate in Shiny Objects

Lucia Henderson, Independent Scholar
Touched by Fire: Volcanoes in Ancient Mesoamerican Belief

Alexus McLeod, University of Connecticut
Embedded Identity in Maya Philosophy

Andrew Finegold, The University of Illinois Chicago
Drilling does not Equal Killing: Perforated Plates in Classic Maya Funerary Contexts

Christopher Beekman, The University of Colorado Denver
Co-essences in the Ceramic Effigies of Far Western Mexico

Linda Brown, The George Washington University
Pure-Nawal: Communicating Objects, Dream Bundles and Contemporary Tz’utujil Maya Ritual Practitioners

Leonardo López Luján, Insituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia & Proyecto Templo Mayor
Amore di Fratello, Amore di Coltello: Huitzilopochtli’s Myth and the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan

Question and Answer Session

Concluding Remarks

Saturday evening January 13th: Closing Reception