2009 Conference on Mesoamerica

“Continuity and Change in Mesoamerican History

From the Pre-Classic to the Colonial Era”

An Homage to Tatiana A. Proskouriakoff

 

 

May 15-16, 2009

Salazar Hall E184California State University, Los Angeles 

This conference on Mesoamerica commemorates the first centennial of Tatiana A. Proskouriakoff’s birth. Born in 1909 in Tomsk, Siberia (Russia), Proskouriakoff migrated with her family to the United States in 1916. She studied architecture and archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, and began doing fieldwork on Maya sculpture and architectural reconstruction in Piedras Negras, Guatemala (1936-1937), Copán, Honduras (1938-1939), Chichén Itzá (1939-1940), and in Mayapán (1951-1955). In her first published article (1944), Proskouriakoff linked historical inscriptions in carved jade found in Chichén Itzá with the history of rulership in Piedras Negras, thus making it possible to undertake stylistic analysis of Classic Maya monuments and to understand the inscriptions in Maya sculptures and glyphs of the historical succession of rulers. Proskouriakoff’s work during the 1950s dealt with Mexico’s Gulf Coast, giving due emphasis to the meaning and function of the ancient ballgame as found in regional sculpture. While at the Peabody Museum (Harvard University), Proskouriakoff began her detailed stylistic analysis of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions in the belief that, more so than a record of ritual and calendric information, the contents were historical in scope.  This breakthrough in Mesoamerican research led to Proskouriakoff’s historical dating of ruling dynasties in Yaxchilán, México (1964). Recognized for her fieldwork and publications on Maya inscriptions, architectural reconstructions, and the stylistic analysis of Maya sculpture, Proskouriakoff is also remembered for her contributions to the interpretation of ideological features in Mesoamerican art, religion, and native reverence toward ancestors. In 1984, Guatemala honored Proskouriakoff with the Order of the Quetzal. She died in 1985. Proskouriakoff’s book, Maya History, appeared posthumously in 1993 as a testimony of a life devoted to the study of Mesoamerica. In this commemoration of Proskouriakoff’s birth, the conference organizers invite papers on the following topics:

 

1. Tatiana Proskouriakoff and her contributions to Mesoamerican studies.
2. Maya Epigraphy.
3. Mesoamerica and its historical periods
4. The Epiclassic and multiethnic urban centers
5. Art and ideology in Mesoamerican Artifacts
6. Mesoamerican cave archaeology
7. Landscape, skyscape, and architectural design
8. Colonial ethnohistorical narratives and the question of historical periods
9. The Mexica and the Triple Alliance during the reign of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin
10. Religion, divination, and lunar symbolism in The Codex Borgia
11. History and ideology in the work of Spanish cronistas of the 16^th century.
12.  Mesoamerican culture and language in the work of Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Jesuits during the Colonial era.
13. Mesoamerica as a linguistic area: continuity and change in indigenous language texts.
14. Architecture, painting, literature, and sculpture: the encoding of Mesoamerican cultural features during the Colonial Era.
15. Transculturation in Art and History of 16th Century Mesoamerica

 Conference Highlights 

Conference Keynote Speaker

Prof. David Carrasco

Founder and Director of the Mesoamerican Archive

Neil L. Rudenstein Professor of the Study of Latin America

Harvard UniversityTitle of Lecture:“Re-Discovering Aztlán and a Mesoamerican Odyssey:An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan”May 16*****Viewing of the film “Breaking the Maya Code” basedon a book by Michael Coe with referencesto Tatiana Proskouriakoff’s life and work.May 15.*****A two-hour decipherment workshop on Maya writing systemsPresented by David Lebrun.May 16***** 

The deadline for a one-page abstract of conference papers is April 17, 2009.  Please send your abstract as an electronic attachment to rcantu@calstatela.edu or mail to the following address:

 

Prof. Roberto Cantú

Department of Chicano Studies

California State University, Los Angeles

5151 State University Drive

Los Angeles, CA  90032

Telephone:  (323) 343-2195

 

Conference Program forthcoming in the Spring 2009.

This event will be free and open to the public.