Worlds Imagined, Worlds Remade

A powerful collection of essays composed in celebration of Davíd Carrasco, a towering figure in the history of religions, Aztec (Colhua-Mexica) history and culture, Chicano/Latine Studies, US–Mexico borderlands studies, and literary studies. In the spring of 2023 a group of scholars, students, and friends convened at Tulane University in New Orleans to celebrate the remarkable life and career of Davíd Carrasco, the Neil Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University. Over the course of a long, distinguished career, Professor Carrasco revolutionized the study of Mesoamerican religions. He also revitalized critical examination of Mexico’s ever-shifting borderlands with the United States, and he remains a steadfast proponent of Chicano activism, now part of a broader diasporic coalition including all members of the global Hispanic and Latine communities. Drawn from that symposium, Worlds Imagined, Worlds Remade: Essays in Honor of Davíd Carrasco serves as a lasting tribute to this towering figure in American letters. The twenty-two essays offer a rich mix of original scholarship spiced with meaningful reflections on pedagogy, interdisciplinarity, and much more. The scholarly core of the volume focuses on new frontiers in Mesoamerican studies, Carrasco’s contribution to the broader field of the history of religions, borderlands studies, and Carrasco’s literary work, especially with Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison. Scholars of Mesoamerica will find tributes by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Anthony F. Aveni, and William B. Taylor, plus original work by outstanding Mexican scholars such as Leonardo López Luján, Laura Filloy Nadal, and María Olvido Moreno Guzmán. Stateside scholars include William Fash, George González, María Cecilia Holt, and Devaka Premawardana, among others. The disciplinary spread of this volume’s roster is dizzying, a reminder of Carrasco’s promotion of “teamwork” long before it was de rigeur.