By PILAR ZAZUETA No other Western holiday is more closely identified with chocolate than Valentine’s Day. The seasonal aisles in stores and supermarkets are filled with chocolate, and food companies spend vast sums of advertising dollars trying to persuade us to celebrate by consuming it in large … [Read more...] about Love, Cacao, and Chocolate’s Mesoamerican Origins
Arte/Letras
Interview with Ernesto Cardenal
In spring 2016, José Montelongo, librarian at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, visited the home of Father Ernesto Cardenal in Managua, Nicaragua. The occasion was the recent acquisition of Father Cardenal's personal papers, an archive that now resides at the Benson. In these excerpts … [Read more...] about Interview with Ernesto Cardenal
Rethinking Maya Studies: A Conversation with Ruud van Akkeren
BY SUSANNA SHARPE It is hard not to feel moved when talking to Ruud van Akkeren about his research. In such a conversation, it quickly becomes clear that Van Akkeren has his own nuanced, and possibly revolutionary, way of understanding Maya past and present in Guatemala, and that he doesn’t … [Read more...] about Rethinking Maya Studies: A Conversation with Ruud van Akkeren
Architecture Through the Lens
Faculty and students at LLILAS Benson train their cameras on Latin American architectural gems old and new. Here is a sample of images from Brazil and Mexico, with more to come. … [Read more...] about Architecture Through the Lens
García Márquez’s Pentimenti
BY JOSÉ MONTELONGO On the morning of November 24, 2014, The New York Times published the news that The University of Texas at Austin had acquired the papers of Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. A few months earlier, Stephen Enniss, director of the university’s Harry Ransom Center, and … [Read more...] about García Márquez’s Pentimenti
