Paper Topics | Spring 2026 | Paper 5
Due Saturday, February 14, 2:00 p.m., to your conference leader
Target length: 1,500-1,600 words
Choose one of the following topics:
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In light of James Maffie’s claims about Mexica metaphysics and ethics (lecture, January 28), analyze the myths about nourishment and sustenance in the Teotlatolli, Teocuilcatl reading. What symbolic associations do these stories make with food and eating? What do the stories about nourishment over the five ages tell us about gods and what humans and gods owe to one another?
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As James Maffie explains (lecture, January 28), Mexica cosmology recognizes the agency of humans and other-than-humans in sustaining the circulation of life force throughout the cosmos. Taking Maffie’s lecture as a point of departure, analyze EITHER the Codex Mendoza OR the Tira de la Peregrinacion for its representation of relationships between the human and the other-than-human (deities, animals, plants, things, environments). According to the work’s representation of the human and the other-than-human, what ought to be the relationship between the two?
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Using the Coyolxauhqui monolith as your primary object, develop an argument about how the Mexica used material objects to embed myth and cosmology into the urban fabric of Tenochtitlan. Analyze how the monolith functioned within a larger architectural, ritual, and cosmological system, paying close attention to its physical placement and role within the Templo Mayor. How does the object connect mythological narratives, such as the myth of Coatepec, to lived urban experience, and what does it reveal about Mexica understandings of the relationships among city, environment, and historical memory?
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In consultation with your conference leader, devise your own topic.
Using generative artificial intelligence or large language models such as ChatGPT to compose all or part of your paper will be considered academic misconduct.