Pre-Columbian Art of the Western and Northern Frontiers of Mesoamerica

FAIN: HB-50575-15

Keith M. Jordan
CSU, Fresno (Fresno, CA 93740-0001)

I seek NEH funding to improve the quality/scope of a new art history class surveying West/North Mexican pre-Columbian art by replacing the current visual aids with new digital slides of architecture and artifacts, and increasing the breadth/depth of content by field research in Mexico (Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, and Jalisco). My project is a step towards rectifying a major gap in education about Mexico’s cultural heritage and reclaiming neglected indigenous art traditions from the margins to which they have been historically relegated in the field of art history. While these regions receive most of their scant coverage in archaeology publications, this course explores them using the methods of art history: iconographic analysis, social and economic contextual approaches, and select application of structuralist, poststructuralist, feminist, etc., perspectives. While drawing on archaeology for background, it is the first to approach the subject from within the humanities.