Talk:Cognition and Cosmology: New Models for Understanding Mesoamerican Southwestern and Southwestern Relations and Culture Change during the Prehistoric Era

from: Shawn K. Schuyler Graduate Student at Syracuse University, Dept. of Religion, Ph.D. program

Please accept my apology if this first-timer is not communicating appropriately via Wiki.

I'm simply seeking to initiate contact with someone organizing this Cognition and Cosmology project.

It seems I've missed the main event; is it still possible to participate?

  [my MA thesis (Miami University, Oxford, OH 2003) and upcoming Ph.D. dissertation center around 
  complex adaptive systems approaches to the Aztec Templo Mayor (the Huey-Teocalli or 'Great God-
  House' of Mexico-Tenochtitlan)

  thus for the last several years I've been applying complex adaptive systems science to problems of 
  interpretation and explanation in HR (the History of Religions)--esp. re: Aztec mythic, ritual, and 
  cosmographic material]

I'd greatly appreciate the chance to share some of this work with others who do chaos and complexity. My post-doc ambitions re: computer modeling of such phenomena would surely benefit from engagement with folks from the Institute.

Additionally, I'd like to propose a panel for the November 2007 American Academy of Religions meeting in San Diego. This panel would focus on applications of chaos and complexity science to comparative modeling of religious-studies phenomena [and here the topics are open; though myth, ritual, cosmology, and material/symbolic relations between humans and landscapes are central concerns]. My hope is to attract a range of methodologies: from hermeneutical interpretation to more 'rigorous' (well-defined?) computer modeling and mathematics. Would anyone at the Institute consider contributing a paper or talk?

Thank You,

Shawn K. Schuyler skskyler@verizon.net h: 315/426-1591 c: 315/278-7359