History of Art & Visual Culture professor Carolyn Dean has been awarded the 2011 Arvey Prize from the Association for Latin American Art.
The award is presented annually for the best scholarly book published on the art of Latin America from the Pre-Columbian era to the present.
Dean received the honor for her book A Culture of Stone: Inka Perspectives on Rock (Duke University Press).
Through analysis of Inka stonework, colonial-period accounts of the Inka, and contemporary studies of indigenous Andean culture, Dean’s book reconstructs the relationships between stonework and other aspects of Inka life--such as imperial expansion, worship, and agriculture.
In the process, she explores how certain stones played a vital role in the unfolding of Inka history.
A leading scholar in the field of Pre-Columbian visual studies, Dean recently consulted for an April 2011 National Geographic feature on the ceremonial role of Inka mummies titled "The Genius of the Inca."
She is also the author of Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru, published by Duke University Press.
