Davíd L. Carrasco is an Mexican-American academic historian of religion, anthropologist, and Mesoamericanist scholar. he holds the inaugural appointment as Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin America Studies at the Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...

, in a joint appointment with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Department of Anthropology at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. Carrasco is known for his research and extensive publications on Mesoamerican religion

Mesoamerican religion

- Cosmology :The cosmological view in mesoamerica is strongly connected to the mesoamerican gods and the spiritual world. You may say that the construction and division of the universe, therefore is a kind of visual and symbolic set up for their religious beliefs....

 and history, as well as wider contributions within Latin American studies

Latin American Studies

Latin American studies is an academic discipline dealing with the study of Latin America and Latin Americans.-Definition:Latin American studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, and experiences of Latin Americans in Latin America and often also elsewhere .Latin American studies...

. His work is known primarily for his illuminating writings on the ways human societies orient themselves with sacred place.

Noted as "one of the foremost scholars of Mesoamerican religions and cultures" Carrasco has contributed particularly to the study of history, religion and symbolism of the Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 and Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

 cultures. Several of his publications have received awards, and he is a recipient (2004) of the Order of the Aztec Eagle

Order of the Aztec Eagle

The Order of the Aztec Eagle is a Mexican order and is the highest decoration awarded to foreigners in the country.It was created by decree on December 29, 1933 by President Abelardo L. Rodríguez as a reward to services given to Mexico or humankind by foreigners...

, the highest decoration awarded by the Mexican government to foreigners. In 2006, Carrasco received the Mircea Eliade Jubilee medal, presented in absentia by the President of Romania, Traian Basescu. The Mircea Eliade award, named for the preeminent Romanian-born interpreter of world religions, was given as a sign of appreciation for contributions in the study of history of religion.

Published works

• The Oxford encyclopedia of Mesoamerican cultures: the civilizations of Mexico and Central America
• Moctezuma's Mexico: visions of the Aztec world
• Daily life of the Aztecs: people of the sun and earth
• Quetzalcoatl and the irony of empire: myths and prophecies in the Aztec tradition.
• Mesoamerica's classic heritage: from Teotihuacan to the Aztecs
• Waiting for the dawn: Mircea Eliade
  Mircea Eliade
  Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
  
   in perspective
• To change place: Aztec ceremonial landscapes
• Cave, city, and eagle's nest: an interpretive journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan.
• Breaking through Mexico's past: digging the Aztecs with Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.
• The history of the conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo
  Bernal Díaz del Castillo
  Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:...
  
  . (editor)
• Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest (edited with Scott Sessions)
• Alambrista and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Film, Music, and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants (edited with Nicholas J. Cull
  Nicholas J. Cull
  Professor Nicholas J. Cull is a historian and the director of the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the University of Southern California.-Biography:...
  
  )

External links

• faculty profile, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University