BookAncient Maya gender identity and relations

HLAS annotation

• Essential anthology of excellent scholarly articles examines Mayan gender ideologies and practices. Articles are set within broader context of sociocultural history, principally as conditions existed in the classic period. Rather than proposing some kind of artificial unity, the diverse set of contributions reveal a variegated gender landscape sharing some commonalities, but riven by significant differences too, depending on time and space, with some changes observable over time even within the same sociopolitical entity. Individual articles include: Amelia M. Trevelyan and Lowell S. Gustafson, "Introduction;" Marvin Cohodas, "Multiplicity and Discourse in Maya Gender Relations;" Lowell S. Gustafson, "Shared Gender Relations: Early Mesoamerica and the Maya;" Julia A. Hendon, "Household and State in Pre-Hispanic Maya Society: Gender, Identity, and Practice;" Amelia M. Trevelyan and Heather W. Forbes, "The Gendered Architecture of Uxmal;" Lowell S. Gustafson, "Mother/Father Kings;" Karen Bassie-Sweet, "Corn Deities and the Male/Female Principal;" Beatriz Barba de Piã Chán, "The Popol Vuh and the Decline of Maya Women's Status;" María Elena Bernal-García, "A Divine Couple's Gender Roles in the Setting of the Earth at Palenque;" Carolyn E. Tate, "Holy Mother Earth and Her Flowery Skirt: The Role of the Female Earth Surface in Maya Political and Ritual Performance;" F. Kent Reilly, "Female and Male: The Ideology of Balance and Renewal in Elite Costuming among the Classic Period Maya;" and Rosemary A. Joyce, "Desiring Women: Classic Maya Sexualities."