For this project, I developed a unique methodology which I have denominated “integral”. This methodology, like a bottom-up approach, entails the study of the material support, manufacture, painting process and biography of an original manuscript, in this case Codex Laud. To achieve this task, I undertook a training experience in which I learned the steps of a codicological analysis. This activity was guided by Dr. Mikulska and its results were compiled in a report.
To study the graphic contents of Codex Laud, I carried out two ethnographic campaigns in which I gathered empirical data on the notions and practices around death, ancestors, rituals and divinatory sessions. In my first ethnographic campaign, I visited a Mixe community in the South of Mexico in which the use of the 260-day calendar, divinatory practices, and strong worldview around ancestors, including festivities, rituals and communication with them, still prevails.
With all this empirical data at hand, proper visual analysis of the graphic contents of Codex Laud took place. For this, I nourished from the work developed by Dr. Mikulska on the graphic communication system of codices. I integrated myself to her regular courses and seminars at the Institute of Iberian and Iberoamerican Studies. I also took a Nahuatl course with Dr. Agnieszka Brylak. All these seminars, along with bibliographic research on the topic of metaphors, has, and still is, helped me to write a new interpretative-commentary of Codex Laud.
Derived from my research, I have published two articles in peer review Open Access journals. One other contribution is a chapter in an edited volume which corresponds to the catalogue for the exhibition of the Aztec culture, currently making a tour in Europe. I have written a fourth paper to appear soon in an edited Open Access book.
I presented also my project in four prestigious international venues. In one occasion, functioned as co-coordinator of a session specialized in the study of codices. Furthermore, I also got invited to give lectures in two eminent European learning centres in Paris and Madrid.
During my stay in the University of Warsaw I offered two semester courses to postgraduate students in which I taught thoroughly the so called “Leiden school” approach for the study of codices and complemented it with decolonial theories and methods. At the same time, I had the opportunity to share aims, goals, methods and findings of my project to students and colleagues in different seminars. I also participated in two different congresses in the fields of codices and graphic communication systems, in Mexico and Poland, respectively. Finally, I was interviewed and invited to a webinar by Euraxess organization of the European Commission.
