Edgewalker a conversation with linda schele biography

Professor in the History of Art at the University of Texas, Austin, Linda Schele had become one of the best known communicators to the public of the extraordinary discoveries which have changed our understanding of this ancient culture. Others tapped into her inspirational gift for relating an ancient culture to our modern world and, amongst many keynote speeches at conferences and university commencements, NASA invited her to address their key staff on the relevance of understanding another world view.

An outsider, in her own words an edgewalkerall her career, Linda had been an artist and teacher when the Maya captured her imagination. Linda was first captivated by the Maya on a chance visit to the ruins of Palenque in Mexico.

Edgewalker a conversation with linda schele biography

Like many who fall in love with Palenque she vowed to return. Ed, You have brought back a lot of memories! The last time that we met here was here in Houston in for her lecture. After her lecture was over, Linda set down on the stage and talk to my wife and I about different Mayan topics. She wanted my necklace and I decided to give it to her the next time that I saw her but never got to see her again.

So I gave it to the next best person! She was a great lady. Thank you for the link to Edgewalker. I have read and enjoyed three of her collaborative books. In addition to teaching me Mesoamerican history, they took me into past and present worlds of real people. Listening to her adds another dimension to those worlds. I see why you wanted to study with her.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content February 1, Episode Linda Schele. Beautiful, Ed. Professor Schele would be very proud of you and your work! She was from Hendersonville, TNa northern suburb of Nashville. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Linda Schele began taking commercial art courses at the University of Cincinnati in and graduated in Education and Art in With an increasing interest in literature, she spent another four years in Cincinnati's graduate program and obtained her master's degree in Art in She married the architect David Schele inand started teaching Studio Art at the University of South Alabamaremaining there tillby which time she was Professor.

An obligatory visit to Palenque the next summer turned into a day stay spent drawing and studying Maya architecture. Fascinated by the art, Schele decided to investigate the culture and history of the ancient people who had created the city. Mentored by Merle Greene RobertsonSchele worked with Peter Mathews and Floyd Loundsbury [ 3 ] to decipher a major section of the list of Palenque kings, presenting her work in the conference Mesa Redonda de Palenqueorganized by Robertson.

This meeting established the previously unknown Linda as a major figure in the Maya studies, not only of art and history, but also of dirt archaeology and epigraphy, [ 4 ] and her work stimulated several later discoveries, by herself and others. InSchele was invited to the Second International Archaeoastronomy Conference at Colgate to present an exploratory paper on Palenque hierophanies and their link to emblem and skull variant glyphs, which she later published in Alongside Peter Mathews; David Kelley; and one of her longtime mentors, Floyd Lounsbury, she participated in a series of miniconferences at Dumbarton Oaks which pushed further developing and refining of the Palenque series and also opened new epigraphic frontiers.

Still attending graduate school, Schele founded the Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop in Texas in which consisted of 21 consecutive seminars concerning Maya hieroglyphic writing and introduced more people intrigued by the Maya field than many other books from that time that were considered "popular". By this time in her life, Schele realized her destiny as a Mayanist ; she enrolled as a graduate student in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas shortly before resigning from her position at South Alabama.

At the time of her death, she was the John D. Murchison Regents Professor of Art in the department. The exhibition spoke of an obsession with royal descent, of incessant warfare, and of bloody sacrifice and self-mutilation which was inconsistent with the models proposed by previous generations of Mayanists. According to Michael D.

Coethe catalog presented by Schele and Miller "might as well stand as the most influential book on the Maya published in the past half-century. She also began taking an interest in the culture of the contemporary Maya. For a decade beginningshe organized 13 workshops, along with Nikolai Grube and Frederico Fahsenon hieroglyphic writing for them in Guatemala and Mexico.

Michael D. On April 18,she died of pancreatic canceraged fifty-five. The Blood of Kings was awarded the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award of the College Art Association for the best exhibition catalogue of The Texas Notes were informal reports produced by Linda Schele and others between and to allow for the quick dissemination of results in the rapidly evolving field of Maya epigraphy.