The Disguise of the Hummingbird: On the Natural History of Huitzilopochtli in the Florentine Codex

Abstract This essay explores the avian nature of Huitzilopochtli (“Hummingbird on the Left”), the tutelary god of the Mexica, by centering the deity’s association with the hummingbird. Arguing that there is a “natural history of Huitzilopochtli” deployed in book 11 of the Florentine Codex, devoted to “earthly things,” this analysis re-entangles hummingbird ethology with Huitzilopochtli’s cult, a bond that was severed in the early days of colonization. A close reading of the Nahuatl, Spanish, and visual texts in this book reveals that seasonal cycles and hummingbird behavior—energy budgeting, flower nectar diet, swift flight, and long-haul migration—can be interpreted as inspiring the three main feasts of Huitzilopochtli in the Mexica ritual year. Furthermore, reading the natural history entries in book 11 as related to the avian god illuminates how central hummingbirds were as markers of the dry and rainy seasons and their effects in Nahua social and ritual life.

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Periferias europeias: Sebald fala em Tübingen (e uma digressão sobre Pierre Bertaux) | European peripheries: Sebald speechs in Tübingen (and a digression about Pierre Bertaux)

Revista PHILIA | Filosofia, Literatura & Arte ◽

10.22456/2596-0911.117373 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 27-60

Author(s):

Uwe Schütte

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

First Century ◽

Close Reading ◽

Political Issues ◽

Special Position ◽

History Of ◽

Historia Natural ◽

European Unification ◽

Twenty First Century

O tema deste artigo é um texto apócrifo de W. G. Sebald, o ensaio "Europäische Peripherien" [Periferias Europeias], baseado em uma palestra proferida em fevereiro de 1992, em Tübingen. Esse ensaio ocupa um lugar especial na obra de Sebald, pois nele o autor se expressa mais resolutamente do que em qualquer outra ocasião sobre questões políticas, no que diz respeito tanto ao processo de unificação europeia quanto aos problemas fundamentais das sociedades ocidentais na transição para o século XXI. A partir de uma leitura mais atenta, chego à conclusão de que esse ensaio, supostamente secundário, revela-se um importante pilar para reconstruir a interpretação profundamente melancólica que Sebald faz da história com base no conceito de uma “história natural da destruição”. Ao mesmo tempo, “Europäische Peripherien” permite reconhecer a importância de Mutation der Menschheit [Mutação da Humanidade], de Pierre Bertaux, como influência fundamental, até então não reconhecida, para o desenvolvimento da obra de Sebald.Palavras-chave: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “História natural da destruição”. Pierre Bertaux. AbstractThis article discusses the essay "Europäische Peripherien", a hitherto overlooked text by W.G. Sebald based on a lecture given in Tübingen in February 1992. The essay occupies a special position in Sebald's oeuvre, as the author positions himself more pronouncedly than anywhere else on political issues, both with regard to the process of European unification and to fundamental challenges of Western societies in the transition to the twenty-first century. In my close reading the supposedly insignificant essay proves to be an important text for a reconstruction of Sebald's deeply melancholic view of history as expressed in the concept of a "natural history of destruction". At the same time, "European Peripheries" allows us to acknowledge the importance of Pierre Bertaux’ Mutation der Menschheit as an undiscovered influence on the development of Sebald's oeuvre.Keywords: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “Natural history of destruction”. Pierre Bertaux. ORCIDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4825-1912

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Women, Star Trek, and the early development of fannish vidding

Transformative Works and Cultures ◽

10.3983/twc.2008.044 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Francesca Coppa

Keyword(s):

Star Trek ◽

Early History ◽

Close Reading ◽

Visual Texts ◽

Quantum Leap ◽

History Of ◽

Mainstream Culture ◽

And Control ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

This paper argues that the practices and aesthetics of vidding were structured by the relationship of Star Trek’s female fans to that particular televisual text. Star Trek fandom was the crucible within which vidding developed because Star Trek’s narrative impelled female fans to take on two positions often framed as contradictory in mainstream culture: the desiring body, and the controlling voice of technology. To make a vid, to edit footage to subtext-revealing music, is to unite these positions: to put technology at the service of desire. Although the conflict between desire and control was particularly thematized in Star Trek, most famously through the divided character of Spock, the practices of vidding are now applied to other visual texts. This essay examines the early history of vidding and demonstrates, through the close reading of particular vids made for Star Trek and Quantum Leap, how vidding heals the wounds created by the displacement and fragmentation of women on television.

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Sahagún's “Florentine Codex”, a little known Aztecan natural history of the Valley of Mexico

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2006.33.2.302 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 302-321 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Henry M. Reeves

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Natural History ◽

English Translation ◽

New Spain ◽

Bernardino De Sahagun ◽

History Of ◽

English Speaking ◽

Hernan Cortes ◽

Florentine Codex

Franciscan missionary Fray Bernardino de Sahagún arrived in New Spain (Mexico) in 1529 to proselytize Aztecs surviving the Conquest, begun by Hernán Cortés in 1519. About 1558 he commenced his huge opus “Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España” completed in Latin–Nahuatl manuscript in 1569. The best surviving version, the “Florentine Codex”, 1579, in Spanish–Nahuatl, is the basis for the editions published since 1829. The first English translation was issued in 13 volumes between 1950 and 1982, and the first facsimile was published in 1979. Book 11, “Earthly things”, is a comprehensive natural history of the Valley of Mexico based on pre-Cortésian Aztec knowledge. Sahagún's work, largely unknown among English-speaking biologists, is an untapped treasury of information about Aztecan natural history. It also establishes the Aztecs as the preeminent pioneering naturalists of North America, and Sahagún and his colleagues as their documentarians.

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"On the Natural History of Destruction" and Cultural Memory: W. G. Sebald

German Politics & Society ◽

10.3167/104503005780979958 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 42-64 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Karen Remmler

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

Identity Politics ◽

Cultural Memory ◽

Current Practice ◽

Literary Texts ◽

Close Reading ◽

German Studies ◽

Disaster Studies ◽

History Of ◽

Point Of Departure

Benjamin's well-known emblematic description of the rememberer as an archaeologist in "Excavation and Memory" is a fitting point of departure to explore the meaning, transmission, and form of cultural memory as a methodology and a subject in German studies. In this article, I explore the shift toward a renewed materiality of memory in fields such as archaeology and disaster studies that have been tangential to the discourses of cultural memory based on trauma and on identity politics prevalent in German cultural studies. After describing current practice in these fields and their relevance to the formation of cultural memory within the context of German studies, I then read the writing of W.G. Sebald within the framework of archaeological tropes in which the spaces dedicated to the dead play a major role. The close reading of Sebald's text serves as a model for re-reading other contemporary German literary texts within the broader context of other disciplinary approaches to the space of memory in the aftermath of atrocity.

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How is the moral stance related to the intentional stance and group thinking?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19002413 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

Author(s):

Hannes Rakoczy

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Intentional Stance ◽

Cognitive Capacities ◽

Shared Intentionality ◽

History Of ◽

Group Thinking ◽

Moral Stance

Abstract The natural history of our moral stance told here in this commentary reveals the close nexus of morality and basic social-cognitive capacities. Big mysteries about morality thus transform into smaller and more manageable ones. Here, I raise questions regarding the conceptual, ontogenetic, and evolutionary relations of the moral stance to the intentional and group stances and to shared intentionality.

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