Brooks Lecture Series Concludes with Maya Culture Talk

04/04/2017 

The story of how a small group of women set about preserving traditional and long lost Maya practices in pottery will be shared April 5 by Jeremiah Donovan, a professor of ceramics in SUNY Cortland’s Department of Art and Art History.

Donovan will discuss how the San Antonio Women’s Cooperative was initiated in 2008 and has focused on pottery making as its highest-potential business opportunity in his talk, titled “The Future of the Past: Revitalizing Ancient Maya Cultural Traditions in Modern Maya Communities.” The cooperative’s goal is to create traditional, authentic Maya polychrome pottery, inspired by the ceramics discovered in archeological sites surrounding San Ignacio Belize. Compositional analysis of the pottery from these sites has provided guidance in developing clay mixtures and painting pigments from locally sourced oxides.

This presentation highlights the work of Donovan and his students in a project to assist this community in revitalizing an ancient cultural tradition.

This year’s Brooks lecture series theme reflects the changing nature of the world around us, especially the destruction of cities, societies, and environment, that we are faced with on a daily basis, according to Sharon R. Steadman, a SUNY Cortland professor of sociology/anthropology who is the lecture series organizer and Rozanne M. Brooks Museum director.

Donovan's talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Moffett Center, Room 2125. Before his lecture a reception to welcome the speaker starts at 4 p.m. in the Rozanne M. Brooks Museum, Moffett Center, Room 2126. The talk and the reception are free and open to the public. 

The 2016-17 Brooks Lecture Series is sponsored by a grant from Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC) and the Cortland College Foundation. For more information, contact Steadman at sharon.steadman@cortland.edu or 607-753-2308.