Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies

Tulane University

Pictorial Talking: the Figural Rendering of Speech Acts in Aztec Mexico

November 16th, 2012
4:00pm

Location
Dinwiddie Hall, Rm 103

Join us for a colloquium given by Dr. Elizabeth Boone of Tulane University, sponsored by the Anthropology Department.

In Aztec Mexico before the Spanish conquest a single sign form, the image, supported by the line and the field, bore the documentary responsibility of scripts elsewhere. Images carried semantic meanings by symbolizing or representing (in an abstractly conventional mimesis) that which they indexed, and a spatial syntax organized these images into specific messages. The goal of Mexican pictography was to record meaning rather than sound and language. Only in appellatives (personal, ethnic, and place names) did the images occasionally refer specifically to the sounds of spoken words when identification could not otherwise be achieved.

Despite its relative independence from spoken language, however, pictography was still able to signify "speech" as a nominal act and to accommodate the contents of speech acts. But doing so pushed the edge of the pictographic canon. Although most examples date from the early colonial period when pictography came under the influence of alphabetic writing and opened up more fully to the possibility of word writing, the few examples from before the conquest are suggestive of pictography's greater abilities. This presentation will first explore the function and nature of speech scrolls as adjectival, nominal, and verbal signs. It will then focus on the content of speech acts, and finally on sequential streams of iteration. We will move from the simplest graphic indication of speech to the longest and most complex: from prehispanic Mexican pictography to its transformation in the early colonial period into a script capable of recording Catholic doctrinal orations with subtlety and nuance.

LATEST SITE UPDATES

EVENTS

NEWS

MEDIA

More

Upcoming Events

Summer K-12 Teacher Institute - Exploring Brazil: A Window into the Language & Culture of a Country on the Rise

View Full Event Description

The University of Georgia, Tulane University, and Vanderbilt University will collaborate to offer a Summer Institute on Brazilian Culture and Portuguese Language. K-12 educators of any discipline and grade-level are welcome to apply to attend this 4 day institute. The goal of this institute is to encourage and promote the teaching of Portuguese and the culture of Brazil through film, literature, service learning, and technology in any K-12 classroom. The institute will focus on the language, history, and geography of Brazil. Sessions will include Portuguese language instruction and participants will explore the culture, history, and geography of Brazil. Film screenings and other presentations will be incorporated into the institute to highlight contemporary and engaging cultural content for the K-12 classroom. During the week, educators will work in teams to develop interdisciplinary units that address applicable state learning standards, which they will bring back to their schools to teach and share with colleagues. Educators may receive a certificate of completion for 20 hours of professional development if desired.

Sponsored in part through a Portuguese Flagship Program at the University of Georgia and through a Title VI U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center grant on Latin America awarded to Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies and Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American Studies.

Registration Information Below:

  • Base Registration ($50) includes all materials, parking and registration to entire program with no meals or housing included. You are responsible for making your own housing and dining accommodations.
  • Registration with Base Housing ($150) includes everything above as well as breakfast and lunch, and a double room on campus in dormitory housing.
  • Registration with Private Housing ($225) includes everything above and assures a private room and bath in dormitory housing.
  • Add $50 to registration if interested in receiving Georgia Department of Education approved Professional Learning Units (PLUs)

For more information contact:

Denise Woltering (Tulane University), 504.862.3143, dwolteri@tulane.edu
Kathleen Schmaltz (University of Georgia), 706.583.0388, schmaltz@uga.edu
Claire Gonzalez (Vanderbilt University), 615.343.1837, claire.p.gonzalez@vanderbilt.edu

Call for Papers: Radical Caribbeans

View Full Event Description

Read the official Call for Papers here.

We welcome papers that address any facet of the Caribbean radicalis and radical approaches to Caribbean identity, culture and social practices. Papers may focus on one country or invoke comparative strategies of any regions contained in the greater Caribbean, beyond the confines of the Caribbean sea, northeast of the Florida straits and into the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, and south, along the Atlantic coast, past Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. Papers may be in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese, though English is preferred.

If you are interested in participating, please send a 250 word abstract as an attachment to either of the email addresses listed below by June 15th, 2013. Include the title of your paper, your name (and the names of any co-presenters), institutional affiliation, phone number, mailing and email address. Papers for presentation should be no more than than 20 minutes and may be considered for publication. If submitting a panel for consideration, please include a top sheet with panel title, participant names and a brief abstract of the panel topic in addition to the individual paper proposals.
Notification of acceptance to the conference will be made by July 5, 2013.
For more information on the conference, location and arrangements, visit the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute website for updates at cuba.tulane.edu.

Submit abstracts by June 15 to:
lopez_AT_tulane.edu
icaballe_AT_tulane.edu

Two-week Public Service summer program in Ecuador

View Full Event Description

Center for Public Service: International Programs
Ecuador: Tropical Field Biology and Conservation
Chocó Rainforest, Ecuador | Tentative dates: August 9 – August 23, 2013

Application deadline: January 28, 2013
Deadline extended!

All majors are welcome to apply to spend two weeks in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Ecuador: Tropical Field Biology and Conservation gives students the opportunity to apply the theory and knowledge they have acquired in the classroom to the real world. Students will travel with Dr. Karubian and Dr. Duraes to Ecuador for a two-week intensive field course. While on the course, students will experience first-hand the challenges and rewards of conducting field research and implementing conservation activities in tropical environments. These activities will take place within a context of community engagement based on active collaboration and interaction with Ecuadorian local residents in a variety of contexts.

For more information, click here to visit the Center for Public Service’s page on this program.