Arizona State University Coor Hall 6640 975 S Myrtle Avene #4302
Tempe, AZ 85287
Mail code: 4302
Campus: Tempe
Long Bio
MIGUEL ASTOR-AGUILERA (PhD Anthropology - University at Albany/SUNY) is an Arizona State University Associate Professor whose scholarship concentrates on religious studies, sociocultural anthropology, ethnography, material culture, and archaeology focusing on Indigenous epistemologies within Latin America. He specializes in Mesoamerican cosmovisions and their historical traditions, that is, pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary. His work specializes on Maya ritual specialists in the Yucatán peninsula and their cosmologies as related to their environment. Astor-Aguilera currently teaches courses at Arizona State University in Religious Studies, within the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, that are cross-listed with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Anthropology) and the School of Transborder Studies (Latin American Studies). He has been Faculty Head (Chair) of Religious Studies, Director of Graduate Studies for Religious Studies, and Associate Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at ASU.
Education
PhD. Anthropology, University at Albany/State University of New York
MA. Anthropology, University at Albany/State University of New York
BS. Anthropology and Latin American Studies, University of California-Riverside
Research Interests
Astor-Aguilera conducts research focused on Indigenous Latin America. He specializes in Mesoamerican religions including that of contemporary “folk” healers in the United States/Mexico border zone. His research, being a sociocultural anthropologist, ethnographer, iconographer, and archaeologist specializing in religious studies is interdisciplinary and social historically holistic in method and theory. Astor-Aguilera currently conducts ethnographic investigations of cenote-sinkholes in the Yucatán peninsula and their associated religious rituals and epistemologies amongst the Maya peoples of Mexico.
Publications
The Maya World of Communicating Objects: Quadripartite Crosses, Trees, & Stones. 2010. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Rethinking Relations and Animism: Personhood & Materiality. 2018. Co-Editor Graham Harvey. London: Routledge.
