Purpose: As Camila Townsend will explain in a short reading for this post, the use of Indigenous-language sources is a major innovation of recent scholarship on the Mexica. To better understand the significance of this scholarship, it helps to more critically reflect on the ideas you may already have about this culture. In this discussion post, we’ll consider other depictions of the Mexica that we might be familiar with, and try to understand why Townsend’s approach is different.
Task: Read the . In your first post, consider how Townsend’s approach may be different from the other Aztec-related sources you may be familiar with. These do not necessarily have to be academic; consider media depictions and the like.* Name at least two ways that Townsend’s approach differs from the Aztec-related source you’ve chosen. In your second post, reply to a classmate and discuss how you see these two ways exemplified in Townsend’s text.
*Many media depictions of the Mexica are stereotypical. This is a historical issuebecause the stereotypes are incorrectand an ethical one, because Nahuatl-speakers continue to live in Mexico and . We should take care when discussing people others may claim as ancestors. Consult Greg Younging’s for why Indigenous is the preferred term (64), why tribe doesn’t work (60), and the like.
Click the links , and to help with this discussion
