Susan D. Gillespie, PhD, RPA

Susan D. Gillespie joined the faculty at the University of Florida as an Associate Professor of Anthropology in August 2001. She became Associate Department Chair in 2003, serving in that capacity until 2009. In August 2013 she was promoted to full professor.   She was subsequently awarded a UF Term Professorship (2017-2020).  She was certified with the Register of Professional Archaeologists in 2006. Gillespie was elected President-Elect of the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association in 2003, serving as President from 2005 to 2007.  In 2010 she was elected as a Member of the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, her term expiring in November 2013. Gillespie received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1983 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in the archaeology and ethnohistory of Mesoamerica. That year she was hired as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Illinois State University, Normal, where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 1990. During part of that time she also served as Acting Director of the Midwestern Archaeological Research Center, a contract archaeology program focusing on the Euroamerican period in the Midwest. In 1994 she was hired as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2000. She has directed archaeological projects in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico, and has conducted ethnohistorical studies of both the Aztec and Maya peoples and iconographic analyses of Mesoamerican artworks in general.  Gillespie is the recipient of the 1990 Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize from the American Society for Ethnohistory for The Aztec Kings (1989), the 2002 Gordon R. Willey Prize from the American Anthropological Association, and the 2012 Patty Jo Watson Distinguished Lecturer, American Anthropological Association, Archaeology Division: "The Entanglement of Jade and the Rise of Mesoamerica."

Research Interests

Archaeology, ethnohistory, iconography, and epigraphy of Mesoamerica (focusing on Aztecs, Mayas, and Olmecs); kinship, kingship, and socio-political organization; cosmology and political ideologies; symbolic, structural, and semiotic anthropology; archaeological and social theory; the anthropology of history; the anthropology of art and technology.

Current Projects:  An Architectural Reconstruction of La Venta Complex A
                            Different Ways of Seeing: Modes of Social Consciousness in Mesoamerican Two-Dimensional Artworks
                            Principles of 21st Century Archaeology (a textbook on contemporary archaeology)

Publications

My publications are also posted on academia.edu

BOOKS:

Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice, edited by R. A. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research Press. 2015

Archaeology Is Anthropology, edited by S. D. Gillespie and D. L. Nichols.  Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13. 2003 

Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by R. A. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000

The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 1989
        Winner of the 1990 Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize awarded by the American Society for Ethnohistory

MAJOR ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS:

"Journey’s End (?): The Travels of La Venta Offering 4."  In Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice, ed. by Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie, pp. 39-61.  Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research Press.  2015
   
"Making Things Out of Objects that Move," by Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie. In Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice, ed. by Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie, pp. 3-19.  Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research Press. 2015 

A 3d Model of Complex A, La Venta, Mexico, by Susan D. Gillespie and Michael Volk. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.  DOI information: 10.1016/j.daach.2014.06.001  2014

"Gendering the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh." In Género y Arqueología en Mesoamérica: Homenaje a Rosemary A. Joyce, ed. by María J. Rodríguez-Shadow and Susan Kellogg, pp. 139-151.  Mexico City: Centro de Estudios de Antropología de la Mujer. 2013

"Early Monumentality in North America: Another Comparative Perspective for Africa." Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 48(2):301-314. 2013

"El modelo de la 'sociedad de casas' en la arqueología de la vida cotidiana” In VII Coloquio Pedro Bosch-Gimpera: Arqueologías de la vida cotidiana: espacios domésticos y áreas de actividad en el México antiguo y otras zonas culturales, edited by Guillermo Acosta Ochoa, pp. 21-48. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.   2012

"El Modelo de la 'Casa' en la Estructura Política Maya."  In El Despligue del Poder entre los Mayas: Nuevos Estudios sobre la Organización Política, ed. by Ana Luisa Izquierdo de la Cueva, pp. 29-61.  Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 2011

"Maya Memory Work."  Ancient Mesoamerica 21(2): 401-414.  (Fall 2010 issue) copyright 2011 Cambridge University Press.

"Inside and Outside: Residential Burial at Formative Period Chalcatzingo, Mexico."  Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 20(1):98-120. 2011

"Archaeological Drawings as Re-Presentations: The Maps of Complex A, La Venta, Mexico."  Latin American Antiquity 22(1):3-36.  2011 [pdf sent on request]

"The People of the Cerro: Landscape, Settlement, and Art at Middle Formative Period Chalcatzingo" by David C. Grove and Susan D. Gillespie. In  The Art of Urbanism: How Mesoamerican Kingdoms Represented Themselves in Architecture and Imagery, edited by William L. Fash and Leonardo  López Luján, pp. 53-76.   Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks. 2009

Culturas Locales y Transformaciones Regionales: Investigación de la Socialidad Preclásica a través de su Materialidad.  In Olmeca: Balance y Perspectivas: Memoria de la Primera Mesa Redonda, edited by María Teresa Uriarte and Rebecca B. González Lauck.  Vol. 1, pp 125-131. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas.  2008 (appeared in print 2009)

“Different Ways of Seeing: Modes of Social Consciousness in Mesoamerican Two-Dimensional Artworks.”  Baessler-Archiv 55:103-142, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. 2008 (2007 issue) [pdf sent on request]

“Embodied Persons and Heroic Kings in Late Classic Maya Sculpture.”  In Past Bodies: Body-Centred Research in Archaeology, edited by Dušan Borić and John E. Robb, pp. 125-134. Oxford (UK): Oxbow Press. 2008

"Aspectos Corporativos de la Persona (Personhood) y la Encarnación (Embodiment) entre los Mayas del Periodo Clásico".  Estudios de Cultura Maya 31:55-89.  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.  2008
 
“Pájaro-Serpiente” y la Gobernatura en Mesoamérica.  In Ideología política y sociedad en el periodo Formativo, Ensayos en homenaje al doctor David C. Grove, ed. by Ann Cyphers and Kenneth G. Hirth, pp. 371-392.  Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 2008

"Chalcatzingo Monument 34: A Formative Period "Southern Style" Stela in the Central Mexican Highlands."  The PARI Journal 9(1):8-16.  2008

"History in Practice: Ritual Deposition at La Venta Complex A."  In Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practices, edited by Barbara J. Mills and William H. Walker, pp. 109-136. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research Press. 2008

"The Architectural History of La Venta Complex A: A Reconstruction Based on the 1955 Field Records."  Foundation for Advancement of  Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. 2008.

"Blaming Moteuczoma: The Anthropomorphization of the Aztec Conquest."   In Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico, edited by R.P. Brienen and M.A. Jackson, pp. 25-55.  Niwot: University Press of Colorado. 2008

"Toltecs, Tula, and Chichen Itza: The Development of an Archaeological Myth." In Twin Tollans: Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by C. Kristan-Graham and J. K. Kowalski, pp. 84-127.  Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.  2007

"When is a House?" In The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology, ed. by R. Beck, pp. 25-50. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper No. 35. Carbondale, IL. 2007.

"Is Archaeology Anthropology?" by D. L. Nichols, R. A. Joyce, and S. D. Gillespie. In Archaeology Is Anthropology, edited by S. D. Gillespie and D. L. Nichols.  Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13, pp. 3-13. 2003   Available on AnthroSource

"Teaching Archaeology as Anthropology."  In Archaeology Is Anthropology, edited by S. D. Gillespie and D. L. Nichols.  Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13, pp. 87-97. 2003 

"Archaeology Is Anthropology," by  S. D. Gillespie, R. A. Joyce, and D. L. Nichols. In Archaeology Is Anthropology, edited by S. D. Gillespie and D. L. Nichols.  Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13, pp. 155-169. 2003 

"Body and Soul among the Maya: Keeping the Spirits in Place." In The Space and Place of Death, edited by H. Silverman and D. Small. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No. 11, pp. 67-78.  2002. 

"Middle Formative Domestic Ritual at Chalcatzingo, Morelos", by D. C. Grove and S. D. Gillespie.  In Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by P. Plunket, pp. 11-19.  Los Angeles: UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 46. 2002 

"The Archaeology of Meaning."  In Social Sciences and Humanities, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. EOLSS Publishers, Oxford, UK.  2002 (http://www.eolss.net) 

"Las Flores en el Popol Vuh" by S. D. Gillespie and A. L. E. de MacVean. Revista Universidad del Valle de Guatemala 12 (Dec.):10-17. 2002 

"Agency, Personhood, and Mortuary Ritual: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya."  Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 2001 

"Beyond Kinship: An Introduction." In Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by R. A. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000 

"Lévi-Strauss: Maison and Société à Maisons." In Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by R. A. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000 

"Maya "Nested Houses": The Ritual Construction of Place." In Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by R. A. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000 

"The Monuments of Laguna de los Cerros and Its Hinterland." In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by J. E. Clark and M. E. Pye. Studies in the History of Art. Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. 2000 

"Rethinking Ancient Maya Social Organization: Replacing 'Lineage' with 'House.'"  American Anthropologist 102.  2000 
        Winner of the 2002 Gordon R. Willey Award, given by the Archeology Division of the American Anthropological Association

"Olmec Thrones as Ancestral Altars: The Two Sides of Power. In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, edited by J. E. Robb, pp. 224-253. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 26. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University. 1999 

"Deity Relationships in Mesoamerican Cosmologies: The Case of the Maya God L," by. S. D.Gillespie and R. A. Joyce. Ancient Mesoamerica 9:279-296. 1998 

"The Aztec Triple Alliance: A Postconquest Tradition." In Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, edited by E. H. Boone and T. Cummins, pp. 233-263. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 1998 

"Gendered Goods: The Symbolism of Maya Hierarchical Exchange Relations," by S. D. Gillespie and R. A. Joyce. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, edited by C. Claassen and R. A. Joyce, pp. 189-207. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

"Llano del Jícaro: An Olmec Monument Workshop." Ancient Mesoamerica 5: 231-242. 1994 

"Power, Pathways, and Appropriations in Mesoamerican Art." In Imagery and Creativity: Ethnoaesthetics and Art Worlds in the Americas, edited by D. S. Whitten and N. E. Whitten, Jr., pp. 67-107. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 1993 

"Ballgames and Boundaries." In The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by V. L. Scarborough and D. R. Wilcox, pp. 317-345. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 1991