Fall 2011
Join Students from around the world to learn about Latin America, Mesoamerica, and Maya Writing at Casa Herrera, The University of Texas at Austin’s center for learning and scholarship in the heart of Antigua, Guatemala.
Fall 2011 Study Abroad Program
Course Descriptions
Courses will be taught primarily in Antigua, with field trips to nearby museums and archaeological sites.
The Archaeology of Mesoamerica (3 credits, taught by David Stuart)
Offers an in-depth analysis of ancient cultures through archaeology, art and history. Students explore the 3,000-year development of Mesoamerica, beginning with the first chiefdoms and city-states of the Olmec and Zapotec cultures, and continuing with the ancient Maya and later Aztec cultures of central Mexico. Students analyze the meaning of “Mesoamerica” as a cultural label and examine how the institutions and worldviews of these ancient peoples still resonate strongly in the expressions and identities of indigenous people throughout Mexico, Central America and the United States.
Ancient Maya Writing and History (3 credits, taught by David Stuart)
Focuses on the decipherment of ancient hieroglyphic writing and the examination of ancient texts as historical and cultural source-material. Students gain a solid, working knowledge of the ancient script, the language in which it was written, and the history and methodology underlying the decipherment that took place in the final decades of the 20th century. Maya glyphs are widely considered the single most complex writing system ever devised. With its built-in capacity for exhibiting scribal artistry and idiosyncrasy, the Maya writing system’s inherent complexity has no equal among ancient or modern scripts.
David Stuart, the Linda and David Schele Chair in the Art and Writing of Mesoamerica, is an internationally recognized professor of Mesoamerican art, archaeology and epigraphy. Stuart began deciphering Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions when he was eight years old. At 18, he earned the MacArthur Fellowship, becoming the youngest recipient of the prestigious “genius grant.” Stuart and his longtime mentor Linda Schele, the late Maya researcher and professor at the university, are prominently featured in Nova’s “Cracking the Maya Code” on PBS. The courses will be taught primarily in Antigua, with field trips to nearby museums and archaeological sites.
History of Guatemala (3 credits, taught by Virginia Garrard-Burnett)
Offers an in-depth history from the pre-conquest period through the 20th century. Students will examine the threads that weave though the course of Guatemalan history, including the relations between metropolis and periphery during the colonial era, the Liberal and Conservative discourses of state formation during the 19th century, the “modernizing” programs of the 20th century, and the polemical politics from the 1970s through the 1990s. The course will examine how the Guatemalan state’s ambiguous relationship with the majority Maya population, power relations between classes, and guiding political imperatives change over time. In addition, students will explore how outside actors, such as the United Fruit Company, German coffee growers, the United States government, and Catholic and Protestant churches have affected pivotal episodes in Guatemala’s history.
Religion and Culture in Latin America (3 credits, taught by Virginia Garrard-Burnett)
Challenges students to identify how religion has helped to determine identity and culture in Latin America, from colonial times to the present. Students focus on the historical influence of the institutional Roman Catholic Church as a colonial agent in the region, but they also analyze the symbiotic relationship that emerged between Christianity and local cultures. Through observation and fieldtrips, students will examine expressions of popular religion particular to Guatemala, including the survival of pre-Hispanic Mayan rituals, Maya syncretic religious expressions, progressive Catholicism and Pentecostal “health and wealth” theology.
Virginia Garrard-Burnett, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Fellow in Latin American Studies #1, specializes in the religious history of Latin America with a focus on Protestantism and new religious movements. A Guatemalan newspaper has described her as a “worldwide authority on the history of Protestantism in Guatemala.” She is the author of “Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem” and is co-editing the Cambridge History of Religion in Latin America.
Learn more about this program on the UT Study Abroad Office website