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Listed in: Religion, as RELI-35
Scott C. Sessions (Section 01)
This seminar is an advanced introduction to the history and study of religious expression in the cultural region known as Mesoamerica from prehispanic times to the present. Utilizing a diverse array of primary and secondary materials, we will examine the development of various beliefs, practices, and religious structures, in light of several interpretive approaches to the study of myth, sacred time and space, ritual performance, syncretism, and transculturation. We will explore the nature and symbolism of sacred architecture and ceremonial centers, cosmogonies and worldviews, divination and the ritual calendar, imperial ideologies, sacrificial practices, and concepts concerning the human body, death, and the soul. Attention will be given to regional and cultural variations, continuities and changes over time, and the impact and implications of conquest, colonialism, and the advance of modernity.
Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Sessions.