Art history expert will discuss Mayan culture


LAWRENCE — Yale University scholar Mary Miller will visit the University of Kansas campus to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar lecture at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 20, in the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium.

Miller’s talk, “Were They Enslaved? Maya Figurines from Jaina and Beyond,” will focus on figurines made by the ancient Maya of the Yucatan peninsula (600–900 CE). These Jaina figurines reveal the complexity of Maya social life, which is rarely seen in other media.

Mary Miller is Sterling Professor of the History of Art and senior director of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Yale. A specialist in the art of the ancient New World and curator of major international exhibitions, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has delivered the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art as well as the Slade Lectures at Cambridge University. Her books include “The Blood of Kings: Ritual and Dynasty in Maya Art”; “The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya”; “Maya Art and Architecture”; “Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya”; “A Pre-Columbian World”; “The Art of Mesoamerica” and “The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak.”

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program has been offering undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America's most distinguished scholars.

Founded in 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society. It has chapters at 286 colleges and universities and more than half a million members throughout the country. The KU chapter was founded in 1890 and as such is distinguished as the first chapter west of the Mississippi River.

Co-sponsors of the program are Undergraduate Studies; the Office of First-Year Experience; the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; the School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures; the Department of Anthropology; the Kress Foundation Department of Art History; the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies; the University Honors Program and the Spencer Museum of Art.

Fri, 02/16/2018

author

Anne Wallen

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Anne Wallen

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