Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies

Pre-Columbian Art
Dissertations in Progress by Subject, 2008

Show completed dissertations

Barnes, William, “Icons of Empire: The Art and History of Aztec Royal Presentation” (Tulane University, E. Boone)

Brannen, Laura, “Two Millennia of Powerful Women in the Art of Ancient Costa Rica and Nicaragua: Greater Nicoyan Ceramic Effigies, ca. 500 BCE–1500 CE” (Emory, R. Stone)

Burdick, Catherine, "Text and Image in Classic Maya Art" (UIC, V. Miller)

Desai, Prajna, “Read, See, Do: Palenque's Palace, Mexico (654–720) and the Materiality of Knowledge” (Yale, M. Miller)

Frassani, Alessia, “The Church and Convento of Santo Domingo Yanhuitlan, Oaxaca: Art, Politics, and Religion in a Mixtec Village, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries” (CUNY, E. Quiñones-Keber)

George, Angela, "The Old New World: Unearthing Mesoamerican Antiquity in the Art and Culture of the United States, 1839–1893" (Maryland, College Park, S. Promey)

Henderson, Lucia Ross, “Preclassic Kaminaljuyú: Reconstructing a Lost Maya City through Its Visual Record” (UT Austin, J. Guernsey, D. Stuart)

Hoobler, Ellen, “The Zapotec Urn Revisited: Recontextualizing Ceramic Effigy Vessels from Oaxaca” (Columbia, E. Pasztory)

Jones, Kimberly Lynn, “The ‘Fine River’: Ritual Canals in Ancient Peru” (UT Austin, S. Bourget)

Lyall, Victoria, “Picturing Place: Terminal Classic Mural Painting in the Northern Maya Lowlands” (UCLA, C. Klein)

Machado, John Louis, Jr., “The Murals of Las Higueras, Vera Cruz, Mexico” (UT Austin, J. Guernsey)

Matusik, Taryn, "The Image Breakers: Sculptural Mutilation among the Olmec and Maya" (Columbia, E. Pasztory)

Park, Yumi, “The Engraved Head Motif on Cupinisque Style Vessels: Innovation and Appropriation in Early Andean Art” (Virginia Commonwealth, J. Farmer)

Richter, Kim, “Religion and Political Legitimacy: A Stylistic, Iconographic, and Contextual Analysis of Postclassic Huastec Sculpture” (UCLA, C. Klein)

Rojas, Alejandra, "Flora Incognita: Knowledge and the New World in Four Sixteenth-Century Herbals" (Harvard, T. Cummins)

Scher, Sarah E. M., “States of Dress: Gender, Role, and Status in Moche Art” (Emory, R. Stone)

Steinbach, Penny Janice, “Sacrificing the Jaguar Baby: Understanding a Classic Maya Myth on Codex-Style Ceramics” (UT Austin, D. Stuart, J. Guernsey)

Terry, James, "Signifying Architecture: Maya Architecture of Chicanna and the Central Yucatan" (Yale, M. Miller)

Trever, Lisa Senchyshyn, "Mural Painting and Architectural Sculpture on the North Coast of Peru (200–900 CE)" (Harvard, T. Cummins)

Vila Llonch, Elisenda, “Conveying Power in the Andes: Ancient and Viceregal Litters from Peru” (Maryland, College Park, J. Pillsbury)

Waldron, Lawrence, “Like Turtles, Islands Float Away: The Emergence of Zoomorphic Iconography in Saladoid Ceramics of the Lesser Antilles, 500 BCE to 650 CE” (CUNY, E. Quiñones-Keber)

Walker, Virginia Kay, “Malinalco: Contextualizing Architecture and Landscape in the Aztec Periphery” (UT Austin, D. Stuart)

Werness, Maline Diane, “Chocholá Ceramics and the Polities of Northwestern Yucatan” (UT Austin, D. Stuart)

Winn, Paula, “Ecuador Effigy Mortars: Ritual and Tradition in Ancient Andean Sculpture” (Virginia Commonwealth, J. Farmer)