Aztec Religion and Art of Writing: Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua...

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Isabel Laack

Aztec Religion and Art of Writing

Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality

Isabel Laack

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Hardback

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English

Brill
17 January 2019

Palaeography (history of writing); History of religion; Ancient religions & mythologies; Sacred texts

Series: Numen Book Series

Winner of the 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies

In her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality.

Laack transcends the concept of “sacred scripture” traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication.

This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas.

""This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system."" - Davíd Carrasco, Harvard University

By: Isabel Laack
Imprint: Brill
Edition: xx + 435 pp.
Volume: 161
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 967g
ISBN: 9789004391451
ISBN 10: 9004391452
Series: Numen Book Series
Pages: 456
Publication Date: 17 January 2019
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Dr. Isabel Laack, Privatdozentin at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Heidelberg University, Germany, is the author of Religion und Musik in Glastonbury (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) as well as numerous articles in the field of the aesthetics of religion.

Reviews for Aztec Religion and Art of Writing: Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality

Isabel Laack's Aztec Religion and Art of Writing makes an important departure from the way aesthetics, semiotics, and studies of religion have been applied to our understanding of Aztec civilization and culture. Furthermore, by relocating the epicenter of scholarly gaze, to religion and regions beyond Christianity and Anglo-American or European contexts, Laack offers an innovative postcolonial aesthetic approach to religion. Laack's bold methodological departure from her own graduate training provides encouragement for scholars of all stages to chart similar pathways for themselves. - Jury of the AAR 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies.