News and Events

August 19, 2009

Museum Program Director co-editor of recently released book

Museum Program Director, Aurore Giguet, is co-editor of the recently released book Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena. Univeristy of Florida Press.

Overview:

"A significant contribution to the literature on Mesoamerican and material culture studies since it treats the iconography, archaeology, and social life of figurines. The volume focuses on a very intriguing and little-studied art form, and it is refreshing for its focus on small or non-monumental art that is found in elite and non-elite contexts."--Joel Palka, University of Illinois, Chicago

"This overview of the state of art in the study of Mesoamerican figurines of all time periods is packed with new data and lively interpretation."--Richard Lesure, University of California, Los Angeles

Although figurines are among the most abundant class of artifacts known in the vast Mesoamerican culture, this is the premier single volume to examine these figurines from the Olmec to the Aztec civilizations.

These small, often ceramic objects are commonly found at many archaeological sites. They appear in the shape of humans, supernatural beings, animals, and buildings. Mesoamerican Figurines brings together many seasoned and respected scholars of art history, archaeology, ethnohistory, anthropology, and social theory to analyze these objects by their stylistic attributes, archaeological content, function, and meaning.

Because of their variety and number, figurines represent a rich dataset from which ancient Mesoamerican identity and practices can be ascertained, including human body symbolism, materiality, memory and human agency, trade and interaction, and religion.

MESOAMERICAN FIGURINES has been selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Choice is a prestigious list of publications that reflects the best in scholarly titles and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community. Choice editors base their selections on the reviewer's evaluation of the work, the editor's knowledge of the field, the overall excellence in presentation and scholarship, distinction as a first treatment of a given subject in book or electronic form, originality or uniqueness of treatment, as well as other criteria.