Winner of the 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies In her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality. Laack transcends the concept of "sacred scripture" traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication. This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas. "This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system." - David Carrasco, Harvard University

Studying the Indo-European languages means having a privileged viewpoint on diachronic language change, because of their relative wealth of documentation, which spans over more than three millennia with almost no interruption, and their cultural position that they have enjoyed in human history. The chapters in this volume investigate case-studies in several ancient Indo-European languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite, Luwian, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Armenian, Albanian) through the lenses of contact, variation, and reconstruction, in an interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary way. This reveals at the same time the multiplicity and the unity of our discipline(s), both by showing what kind of results the adoption of modern theories on "old" material can yield, and by underlining the centrality and complexity of the text in any research related to ancient languages.

Organizational Communication: Foundations, Challenges, and Misunderstandings examines how communication is central to organizational life and the complexities and complications that arise as people attempt to coordinate their organizational activities. The text underscores the importance of the relationships we establish with the people with whom we work and how a better understanding of organizational communication theory and application can help us anticipate and manage misunderstandings in the workplace. In Part One, students learn about classical and modern management theories, systems theory, and frameworks for understanding organizational communication, including organizational culture and critical theory. In Part Two, the text covers topics traditionally covered in organizational communication textbooks through the lens of misunderstandings. Stories from organizational members highlight challenges and opportunities related to communicating in the organization. Realistic recruitment, socialization, the relationship between supervisors and subordinates, peer and team relationships, and leadership communication are addressed. The fifth edition features new interview data; broader coverage of diversity; expanded discussions of emotions at work; and examinations of workplace bullying, blended relationships, and technology as it relates to gender and age. Offering students a balanced mix of theoretical and practical information, Organizational Communication is an exemplary textbook for introductory organizational communication courses.