The Maya (328-0-1)
Instructors
Cynthia Robin
847/491-4835
1812 Hinman Ave., Room #104, EV Campus
Meeting Info
2001 Sheridan Anthro Lab 1325: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
This course explores the history of ancestral Maya civilization before the Spanish invasion in 1500 CE. Drawing on the complementary studies of history and archeology we will examine Indigenous texts, artifacts, and cities to reconstruct the social, economic, political, religious, and environmental foundations of ancestral Maya society and explore its legacies for developing equitable and sustainable lifeways.
Across the course we bring together two key sources of historical data - textual and material - to show how multi-source analysis allows us to gain our broadest understanding of ancestral Maya civilization. Principal textual sources will include the masterpiece, the Popol Vuh (the sacred book of the history of the Quiché Maya), a book secretly written during the Spanish invasion to preserve Maya history, codices (pictorial texts written on folded bark paper between the 11th and 15th centuries), and hieroglyphic texts written between 250 and 900 CE on stone monuments across Maya cities. Principal material sources will include the buildings, art, and artifacts of ancestral Maya cities, towns, and villages.
Understanding ancestral Maya history reveals histories of Indigenous resilience and shows us lessons we can learn for our world today about sustainable and equitable lifeways. We address issues of power and justice as we consider questions such as: Why were the ancestral Maya traditionally considered a prehistoric civilization when they wrote vast historical texts? Why do traditional accounts conclude that Maya civilization collapsed in 900 CE when there are millions of Maya people living today? And, how can analyses of Indigenous textual and material sources address imbalances in power and justice for Indigenous peoples?
Learning Objectives
Historical Studies Learning Objectives:
1. Acquire knowledge about the history of the ancestral Maya before the Spanish invasion around 1500 CE (cultural, economic, intellectual, political, and social practices and their interdependent development over time in their local and regional context) and become familiar with relevant primary and secondary sources.
2. Develop skills of historical analysis, including the means to evaluate textual and material sources; become acquainted with scholarly historical demonstration, discussion and debate as it relates to the ancestral Maya.
3. Appreciate the impact of historical developments in ancestral Maya society particularly as they relate to lessons we can learn about sustainable and equitable lifeways; use these insights to acquire historical perspective on the present; consider agency and subjectivity of the ancestral Maya before and during the Spanish invasion; reflect on the varieties of memory and experience of Indigenous Americans.
4. Express the results of historical investigation effectively and persuasively in written (essays and exams), oral (class discussion) and visual forms (in-class PowerPoint presentations), and engage in debate with other narrators and interpreters of history through the lenses of Indigenous texts and material culture.
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity Learning Objectives:
1. Engage with scholarship describing the historical structures, processes, human-environmental relationships, and practices that shaped ancestral Maya civilization and have implications for our global world today.
2. Explore the social, political, environmental, and cultural bases of ancestral Maya civilization, and how they constituted themselves and are constituted by others through texts and artifacts.
3. Generate the knowledge and develop the skills necessary to grapple with key issues implicated by the study of ancestral Maya history such as indigeneity, sustainability, equity, resilience, power, justice, and invasion.
4. Analyze how these terms intersect and overlap, with attention to the dynamism and variety of experiences and expressions across ancestral Maya history.
Class Materials (Required)
There are no reading material costs for this course. There is one required books for this class: Everyday Life Matters: Maya Farmers at Chan by Cynthia Robin (2013, ISBN-10 0813062101). An electronic copy of this book is available free to students through the NU library. All additional course readings will be articles or book chapters available to students at no cost through the course Canvas site. Students are certainly welcome to purchase their own copies of the required text if they wish to own the book (Everyday Life Matters lists at $24.95) but should be aware that they can access a free electronic copy of the book through the NU library.
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Pre-Registration -- Reserved for Anthropology majors and minors until the end of preregistration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone.