Fordham scholar to discuss Aztec aqua-ecology and ideology

Fordham University scholar Barbara Mundy will discuss "Aqua-ecology and ideology in Aztec and colonial Mexico City" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, in Palamountain Hall, Room 301.

Free and open to the public, the talk is sponsored by the Latin American Studies Program and the Department of Art History.

The drive to empty the shallow inland seas of the Valley of Mexico led to the well-known desague (drainage) campaigns of the colonial city. But these were only the last stages of centuries of ecological manipulation here. The control and management of water was essential to the creation of Aztec Mexico City (Tenochtitlan) and the survival of its residents, and ideologies about water found their visual expression in works of art.

In this lecture, Mundy will explore both the complex hydraulic system created by Aztecs and look at the instrumental role that sculpture played within that system, as well as its colonial legacy.

Barbara Mundy is associate professor of Art History at Fordham University. She specializes in Latin American art of the colonial period (16th through 18th centuries). Her book, The Mapping of New Spain, was awarded the Nebenzahl Prize in the History of Cartography in 1996. A current project, Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), can be seen online.

Mundy's research interests center on indigenous art created in the Spanish colony, especially in New Spain, cartography in the early modern period, and the role of collections in pre-Columbian art history. She is a graduate (B.A., Ph.D.) of Yale University.