Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis

In these times of social and epidemiological crisis, it is crucial to consider how our historical antecedents faced emergency. In this lecture, Edgar Garcia examines how the indigenous K’iche’ Maya story of creation the Popol Vuh—written in a time of colonial devastation—helps its readers to rethink the current crisis and the repercussions of the colonialism crisis. The Popol Vuh not only gives critical resonance to our present emergency, it also wishes to show its readers how to reframe emergency as a source of possible (social, political, and intellectual) emergence; how to meet crisis with creativity; and, indeed, how to remember the work of creation that has long confronted the devastation of colonial order. This presentation will be split into a lecture and reading from Garcia’s new collection of essays on the Popol Vuh, to be followed by 15 minutes of Q&A.