William L. Barnes
Assistant Professor of Art
Department of Art (Art History)
Curtiss 300a
989-964-2132
Appointed to SVSU in 2005
William Landon Barnes comes to SVSU via San Diego where he taught Pre-Columbian and Latin American art history courses at San Diego State University. Before that, he taught art history survey courses at Tulane University in New Orleans. A specialist in the art of Ancient Mesoamerica, William was a Junior Fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington D.C., and has been the recipient of a number of grants for travel and research in Mexico and Europe.
At SVSU William teaches the following courses: Pre-Columbian Art; The Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; The Art of Latin America; Art in America; Art of the 20th Century; History of Art I; History of Art II; Art and Understanding; Art Appreciation.
William is currently completing work on his Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology from Tulane University, New Orleans (Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American Art History). He received an MA in Art History from Tulane University (Pre-Columbian Art), and a B.A. in Art History from Arizona State University, Tempe.
PUBLICATIONS
"Secularizing for Survival: Changing Depictions of Aztec Rulers in Early Colonial Texts" in Painted Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica: Manuscript Studies in Honor of Betsy Smith, MARI Publication 69, edited by Elizabeth H. Boone, pp. 319-340. New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute. 2005/6
"Maya Works of Art and Ritual" in Teaching the Maya: Pre-Columbian to Present, Maya Works of Art and Ritual, Teaching guide, New Orleans Museum of Art (1999).
"Partitioning the Parturient: An Exploration of the Aztec Fetishized Female Body." Athanor XV: 15-27 (1997).
PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS
"Aztec Royal Bloodletting and the Postbellum Reinvention of a Sculptural Genre." Paper presented at the College Art Association 95th Annual Conference, New York, NY, in the Association for Latin American Art (ALAA) sponsored session "Drawing Blood: Images of Sacrifice and Identity in the Americas, Pre-Hispanic to Contemporary," February 2007.
"But the Greatest of These is Marriage: War, Sacrifice, Marriage, and the Legitimization of Mixtec Conqueror Lord 8 Deer ‘Jaguar Claw.'" Delivered at the annual conference of the College Art Association, Atlanta, Georgia, February 2005.
"Aztec (Re)Presentations of Authority: The Reactionary Hypothesis." Delivered before The Pre-Columbian Society of Washington, D.C. April, 2003.
"Icons of Empire: Recent Research and Preliminary Conclusions." Delivered at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. January, 2003.
"Mutable Authority: Images of Aztec Tlatoqueh in the Early Postconquest Period." Delivered at the annual meeting of the American Society For Ethnohistory, Tucson, Arizona, October 17-21, 2001.
"Aztec Zapotec-izing: The Imperial Significance of Mexica Acculturation." Delivered at the annual conference of the College Art Association, Los Angeles, California, February 10-13, 1999.
"Secularizing for Survival: Changing Depictions of Aztec Rulers in Early Colonial Texts." Delivered at Mesoamerican Manuscript Studies: A Symposium in Honor of Mary Elizabeth Smith. New Orleans, Louisiana, April 3-5, 1998.
"The Flayer-god and Divine Right: A Contextual Alternative to the Mesoamerican ‘Pantheon.' " Delivered at the annual meeting of the South East College Arts Conference (SECAC), Charleston, South Carolina, October 24-26, 1996.
"Visual Evidence and Mythological Context of the Aztec Fetishized Female Body." Delivered at 13th International Symposium of the Latin American Indian Literature Association (LAILA), Hamden, Connecticut, May30-June 2, 1996.
"Partitioning the Parturient: An Examination of the Aztec Fetishized Female Body." Delivered at Florida State University 14th Annual Graduate Student Art History Symposium. Tallahassee, Florida, March 8-9, 1996.