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Research Interests

• Aztec art, ideology and politics
• Gender rhetoric in Aztec art
• Historiography of "Primitive" and Pre-Columbian Art
• Early colonial Mexican art

Special Hontors

"Distinguished Teaching of Art History" award, College Art Association, 2000.

PUBLICATIONS

Books and Edited Journal Issues

• The Face of the Earth: Frontality in Two-dimensional Meso-american Art . New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1976. (Series: Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts).
• (Guest Editor) "Depictions of the Dispossessed: Image and Self-image of Euroamerica's Colonized Natives," special theme issue of Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 2, 1990.
• Powerful Signs: An Introduction to Mesoamerican Art . Oxford University Press, Oxford. (IN PREPARATION)

Exhibition Catalogs

• Nine short articles on Maori and Hawaiian art, in Early Chinese Art and the Pacific Basin: A Photographic Exhibition, ed. Douglas Fraser. New York: Intercultural Arts Press, 1968.
• Art of Pre-Columbian America. Rochester, Michigan: Meadow Brook Art Gallery, Oakland University, 1976.
• Mother, Worker, Ruler, Witch: Cross-Cultural Images of Women (editor). Museum of Cultural History Pamphlet Series, Volume 1, Number 9, UCLA, Los Angeles, 1980.

Articles

• "Postclassic Mexican Death Imagery as a Sign of Cyclic Completion." In Death and the Afterlife in Pre-Columbian America, ed. Elizabeth P. Benson. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1975, pp. 69-85.
• "The Identity of the Central Deity on the Aztec Calendar Stone." The Art Bulletin VIII (1976): 1-12. (REPRINTED in Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings, ed. Alana Cordy-Collins and Jean Stern. Palo Alto: Peek Publications, 1978, pp. 167-189)
• "Who Was Tlaloc?" Journal of Latin American Lore 6 (2) (1980): 155-204.
• "Woven Heaven, Tangled Earth: A Weaver's Paradigm of the Mesoamerican Cosmos." In Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics, ed. Anthony F. Aveni and Gary Urton. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385 (1982): 1-35.
• "Arte precolombino y ciencias sociales." Plural XI-IV (124) (1982): 40-48. Mexico. "The Relation of Mesoamerican Art History to Archaeology in the U.S." In Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings, ed. Alana Cordy-Collins, pp. 1-6. Palo Alto: Peek Publications, 1982.
• " Dioses de la lluvia o sacerdotes ofrendadores del fuego? Un estudio socio-politico de algunas representaciones mexicas del dios Tlaloc." Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl 17 (1984): 33-50. Mexico.
• "Masking Empire: The Material Effects of Masks in Aztec Mexico." Art History 9(2) (1986): 135-167.
• "The Ideology of Autosacrifice at the Templo Mayor." In The Aztec Templo Mayor, ed. Elizabeth H. Boone. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987, pp. 293-370.
• "Rethinking Cihuacoatl: Aztec Political Imagery of the Conquered Woman." In Smoke and Mist: Mesoamerican Studies in Memory of Thelma D. Sullivan, ed. J. Kathryn Josserand and Karen Dakin, Part i. Oxford, England: B.A.R., 1988, pp. 237-277.
• "Tlaloc `Masks' as Insignia of Office in the Mexica-Aztec Hierarchy." In Behind the Mask, ed. Janet Brody Esser. Santa Fe: Museum of International Folk Art/Museum of New Mexico Press, 1988, pp. 6-27.
• "To Bleed Forever: The Function of Stone-carved Images of Aztec Royal Blood-letting Rites." In World Art: Themes of Unity in Diversity, ed. Irving Lavin. Acts of the XXVIth International Congress of the History of Art (CIHA), Vol. III, pp. 575-584. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989.
• "Gaining Respect: Native American Art Studies and the Humanities." Native American Art Studies Association Newsletter 6(2) (1989): 3-6.
• "Editor's Statement," in "Depictions of the Dispossessed: Image and Self-image of Euroamerica's Colonized Natives," Guest Editor Cecelia F. Klein, Art Journal 49(2) (1990): 106-109.
• "Snares and Entrails: Mesoamerican Symbols of Sin and Punishment." Res 19/20 (1990/1991): 81-103.
• (with Emily Umberger): "Aztec Art and Imperial Expansion." In Latin American Horizons, ed. Don Stephen Rice, pp. 295-336. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks. 1993.
• "Teocuitlatl, `Divine Excrement': The Significance of `Holy Shit' in Ancient Mexico." Special issue on "Scatological Art," Gabriel Weisberg, Guest Editor Art Journal 52(3) (1993): 20-27.
• "The Shield Women: Resolution of an Aztec Gender Paradox." In Current Topics in Aztec Studies: A Symposium Honoring H.B. Nicholson, ed. Alana Cordy-Collins and Douglas Sharon, San Diego Museum Papers 30. San Diego: San Diego Museum of Man, 1993, pp. 39-64.
• "Fighting with Femininity: Gender and War in Aztec Mexico," In Gender Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in History, ed. Richard C. Trexler, Center for Early Medieval and Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1994, pp. 107-146.
• "Comment" on Sharisse D. McCafferty and Geoffrey G. McCafferty, "Engendering Tomb 7 at Monte Albán: Respinning an Old Yarn." Current Anthropology 35(2) (1994):157-158.
• "The Object of Art History." Art Bulletin LXXVI(3) (1994): 401-404.
• "Fighting with Femininity: Gender and War in Aztec Mexico." Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl 24 (1994): 219-253.
• "Wild Woman in Colonial Mexico: An Encounter of European and Aztec Concepts of the Other." In Reframing the Renaissance: Studies in the Migration of Visual Culture, ed. Claire Farago, pp. 244-263. London: Yale University Press, 1995.
• "Women's Status and Occupaiton: Mesoamerica." In Encyclopedia of Mexico. ed. Michael S. Werner, Vol 2, pp 1609-1615. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
• "Visual Arts: Mesoamerica." In Encyclopedia of Mexico. ed. Michael S. Werner, Vol 2, pp 1539-1552. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
• "Gender: Mesoamerica." In Encyclopedia of Mexico. ed. Michael S. Werner, Vol 1, pp 560-568. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
• "A Moche Portrait Jar in the Allen Memorial Art Museum," Oberlin College. Masterworks for Learning: A College Collection Catalogue [CD ROM]. Oberlin, OH: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 1998.
• "The Devil and the Skirt: An Iconographic Inquiry into the Prehispanic Nature of the Tzitzimime," In Ancient Mesoamerica 11(1) (2000): 1-26. [Also published in Estudios de Cultural Nahuatl 31 (2000): 17-62].
• "Gender Roles: Prehispanic." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press. (2001)
• "Masks." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press. (2001)
• "Impersonation of Deities." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press. (2001)
• "Gender Studies." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press. (2001)
• "Autosacrifice and Bloodletting." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press. (2001)

In Press

• "None or All of the Above?: Gender Ambiguity in Nahua Ideology." In Gender in Pre-Columbian America, ed. Cecelia F. Klein. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
• Gender in Pre-Columbian America, ed. Cecelia F. Klein. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
• "Introduction." In Gender in Pre-Columbian America, ed. Cecelia F. Klein. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
• "Conclusions: Envisioning Gender in Pre-Columbian America. In Gender in Pre-Columbian America, ed. Cecelia F. Klein. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
• "Around the Fourth World in Seventy Days," in Compression vs. Expression: Containing and Explaining the World's Art, John Onians, organizer, Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.
• (with Eulogio Guzman, Elisa Mandell, Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, and Josephine Volpe) "Shamanitis: A Pre-Columbian Art Historical Disease." In The Uses and Abuses of Shamanism, edited by Henri-Paul Francfort and Roberte Hamayon. Budapest, Hungary: Akademiai Kiado (Academy of Sciences of Hungary) (Series: Bibliotheca Shamanistica, dir. Himaly Hoppal).

Translations

• English summary, in Codex Borgia, ed. Karl Anton Nowotny, pp. 43-45. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1976.

Reviews

• Archaeology of Ancient Peru and the Work of Max Uhle, by Dorothy Menzel, R. H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 1977. African Arts 11 (3) (1978): 91-94.
• Middle Classic Mesoamerica: A.D. 400-700, ed. Esther Pasztory, Columbia University Press, New York, 1978. Bibliographic Leaflets on Archaeology, No. 16 (Meso-america). Los Angeles: The Research Collaboration Group of the Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, 1978.
• Asiatic Influences in Pre-Columbian American Art, by Paul Shao, The Iowa State University Press, 1976. Bibliographic Leaflets on Archaeology, No. 21 (Meso- america). Los Angeles: The Research Collaboration Group of the Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, 1979.
• Middle Classic Mesoamerica: A.D. 400-700, ed. Esther Pasztory, Columbia University Press, 1978. The Art Bulletin LXII (4) (1980): 674-677.
• "Indigenous American Architecture: The Symbolism of Circular Structures--SAH Review." Archaeoastronomy III (2) (1980): 11-12.
• Eskimo Art: Tradition and Innovation in North Alaska, by Dorothy Jean Ray, University of Washington Press, 1977, and Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life, ed. Dorothy Eber, University of Washington Press, 1979. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 5 (1) (1981): 93-98. (REVIEW ESSAY)
• Faces of Fiesta: Mexican Masks in Context, by Janet Brody Esser, San Diego State University Syllabus Service, 1981. African Arts XV (4) (1982): 89-90.
• "Mayamania: The Blood of Kings in Retrospect." (Review of The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, by Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1986.) The Art Journal 47(1) (1988): 42-46.
• Review of Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan, ed. Kathleen Berrin, with essays by Clara Millon, Rene Millon, Esther Pasztory, and Thomas K. Seligman, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988. African Arts XXIII(3) (1990): 93-96.
• Review of Roberta H. Markman and Peter T. Markman, Masks of the Spirit: Image and Metaphor in Mesoamerica, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989. The Nahua Newsletter 22 (1996): 9-16.
• Review of Fray Diego Durán's History of the Indies of New Spain, trans., annotated, & with an introduction by Doris Heyden, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1994. Ethnohistory 43(4) (1996): 758-761.

Recent Lectures

• "Divine Excrement: The Symbolism of Anal Excretions in Ancient Mexico." Session on "Scatology in Art," Gabriel Weisberg, Chair, Annual Meetings of the College Art Association, New York City, February 17, 1990.
• Invited Participant, Workshop on Uto-Aztecan Religion and Cosmology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., March 2-3, 1990.
• "Our Mother, War Woman: Gender Paradox in Aztec Art." Mellon Seminar Series on Art and Ideology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, April 10, 1990.
• "Fighting with Femininity: Aztec Images of Women Warriors." Session on "Ancient Mesoamerican Writing and Art," Karl Taube, organizer. Southwestern Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA, April 14, 1990.
• Discussant, Session on "Image and Information in the Aztec World," Mary G. Hodge and Elizabeth H. Boone, organizers, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, April 21, 1990.
• "Fighting with Femininity: Gender and War in Aztec Mexico." Plenary Session paper, conference on "Gendering Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in Human History," Richard C. Trexler, Coord., Center for Early Medieval and Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, N.Y., October 20, 1990.
• "Fighting With Femininity: War and Gender in Aztec Discourse," Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, November 14, 1990.
• "The Power of Penance: Autosacrifice in the Aztec Capital," Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, November 19, 1990
• "Warrior Women in Aztec Art," University of Colorado, Boulder, April 26, 1991.
• "Aztec Art and the Spanish Conquest," NEH Summer Seminar on "The Encounter," Norman Thrower, org., UCLA, July 25, 1991.
• "Masking Memory: The Role of Masks in Mesoamerican Rulership," conference on "New World Revisited: Investigations of Latin American Art and Cultures," Nancy Jones, Coord., The Detroit Institute of Arts, October 26, 1991.
• "The Role of Masks in the Aztec Empire and Their Importance to Imperial Ideology," The Americas Society, New York, November 14, 1991.
• "The Politics of Aztec Goddesses," Columbia University Seminar on the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Native America, Esther Pasztory, Coord., November 15, 1991.
• The Manly Woman: Gender as Sign in Aztec Art," Mellon Fine Arts Lecture, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, November 21, 1991.
• Invited Participant, Seminar on "Cycles of time and Meaning in Mexican Divinatory Codices," Elizabeth H. Boone, Coord., Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., December 6, 1991.
• "Wild Woman in Colonial Mexico," session on "Reevaluating the Eurocentrism of Italian Renaissance Art History," Claire Farago and Gail L. Geiger, coord's, Annual Meeting of the College Art Association, Chicago, February 13, 1992.
• "Gender in Aztec Art," Research Seminar presentation, Dumbarton Oaks Research Center & Libraries, February 24, 1992.
• "False Faces: Masks and Conflict in Ancient Mesoamerica," Stieren Arts Enrichment Series," Trinity University, San Antonio, April 6, 1992.
• "Methodology in Pre-Columbian Art History," Department of Art methods course, Trinity University, San Antonio, April 7, 1992.
• "Aztec Art and the Spanish Conquest of Mexico," Distinguished Lecture Series, Laredo Junior College, Laredo, TX, April 8, 1992.
• "Masking Memory: The Function of Masks in Ancient Mesoamerica," Distinguished Lecture Series, Laredo Junior College, Laredo, TX, April 8, 1992.
• Invited Discussant, Roundtable on "Earthly Matters," Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
• Moderator and presenter (with Elizabeth H. Boone and Jeanette Sherbondy), "Sacred Persons, Objects and Places in Pre-Columbian America," presentation to seminar on "Saints, Cults, Icons and Amulets," Stanley Tambiah, instr., Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., May 6, 1992.
• "Masking Memory: The Function of Masks in Ancient Mesoamerica," M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, September 24, 1993.
• "Tzitzimime: Aztec Images of the Frightful Woman," Symposium on "Goddesses of the Western Hemisphere: Women and Power," M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, September 25, 1993.
• "Images of Death in Prehispanic Mexico," Teachers' Workshop in connection with the exhibition "En Calavera: The Papier-Mach‚ Art of the Linares Family," Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, March 2, 1995.
• "On Pain of Death: Ritual Violence, Body Talk, and Social Conflict in Pre-Hispanic Mexico." University of British Columbia, Vancouver, March 15, 1996.
• "Rethinking Aztec Human Sacrifice." State University of New York, Binghamton, May 5, 1996.
• "Representing Aztec Human Sacrifice: Sensationalism or Social Justice?" Tulane University, New Orleans, September 16, 1996.
• "None or All of the Above: Gender Ambiguities in Nahua Ideologies." Session on "Recovering Gender in Pre-Columbian America," Cecelia F. Klein, Chair, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1996.
• "The Politics of Violence: Global Perspectives on Aztec Human Sacrifice," Roser Rund Lecture Series for Fall, 1997, on "Global Perspectives," as part of Visiting Scholar Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, November 4, 1997.
• Speaker to graduate seminar as part of Visiting Scholar Program, Department of Fine Arts, University of Colorado, Boulder, November 4, 1997.
• "Mythical Borders and False Dichotomies: Why Pre-Columbianists Need to Be Colonialists and Vice Versa." Symposium on "Colonial/Postcolonial Spanish Colonial Cultural Studies at the Crossroads," Charlene Villaseñor Black, coord., University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, May 2, 1998.
• "Passionless in Aztec Sacrificial Imagery." UCLA Humanities Consortium conference on "The Politics of Passion," UCLA, Los Angeles, April 30, 1999.
• "Magic, Mystery, and Murder: Modern Representations of Pre-Columbian Art," Ninth Annual Patricia McCarron McGinn lecture, UCLA, March 7, 2000.
• "Around the Fourth World in Seventy Days," conference on "Compression vs. Expression: Containing and Explaining the World's Art," John Onians, organizer, Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., April 6, 2000.
• "Not Like Us and All the Same: Pre-Columbian Art History and the Construction of the Nonwest," conference on "West by Nonwest: A Conference Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Pre-Columbian Art History," Esther Pasztory, org., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 11, 2000.

Professional Conferences Chaired

• "Indigenous American Architecture: The Symbolism of Circular Structures." Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, Madison, April 25, 1980.
• "Art and National Consciousness in Latin America." UCLA, Los Angeles, May, 1983. (Co-chaired with David Kunzle)
• "Art and the Growth of the Teotihuacan State." UCLA, Los Angeles, March 5, 1983. (Co-chaired with Esther Pasztory)
• "Art and Social Identity in Reaction to State Control: Peru A.D. 500-1985." Meeting of the College Art Association of America, Los Angeles, February 16, 1985.
• "Depictions of the Dispossessed: Image and Self-Image of Euroamerica's Colonized Natives." UCLA, Los Angeles, May 11-12, 1985.
• "Institutions and the Aestheticization of `Primitive Art', 1900-1988." College Art Association of America (CAA) Annual Meeting, Houston, Texas, February 11-13, 1988.
• "Thinking Through the Mesoamerican Body (A Pun)." College Art Association of America (CAA) Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington, February 4, 1993.
• "Recent Approaches to the Visual Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Native Americas." Meeting of the Southern California Colloquium on the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Native Americas," held at UCLA, Los Angeles, May 1, 1993.
• "What Rituals Did: Mexico and Peru, 1200 - 1700," Department of Art History, UCLA, Los Angeles, March 2, 1996.
• "Recovering Gender in the Prehispanic Americas," Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., October 12-13, 1996.
• "Indigenous Artists and European Intruders: Visual Strategies of Empowerment in Colonial MExico," College Art Association of America (CAA) Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, February 13, 1999.