Crisis and Creativity in Mayan Mythology

The Popol Vuh, written in 1702, was based on a Mayan oral tradition encompassing creation myths, history, and cosmology. These stories were written in a time of crisis: European colonialism had decimated the Mayan population and destroyed much of their cultural knowledge. How do stories help a society survive and thrive? Can they console us in times of crisis? How much of a culture can historians save in times of devastation?

Join our live audience at the Stanford Humanities Center as the Philosophers record a brand-new episode with Edgar Garcia from the University of Chicago, author of Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis.

In addition to thought-provoking conversation and audience questions, the show will feature multimedia reporting from Roving Philosophical Reporter Holly J. McDede and satirical commentary from Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher.

Prof. Garcia will also be giving a separate talk at the Center on Monday, November 18 at 4 pm on Caravaggio’s Americas.