The Art of Urbanism explores how the royal courts of powerful Mesoamerican centers represented their kingdoms in architectural, iconographic, and cosmological terms. Through an investigation of the ecological contexts and environmental opportunities of urban centers, the contributors consider how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves and reflected upon their physical—and metaphysical—place via their built environment. Themes in the volume include the ways in which a kingdom’s public monuments were fashioned to reflect geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art.

This collection of papers addresses how communities leveraged their environment and built upon their cultural and historical roots as well as the ways that the performance of calendrical rituals and other public events tied individuals and communities to both urban centers and hinterlands. Twenty-three scholars from archaeology, anthropology, art history, and religious studies contribute new data and new perspectives to the understanding of ancient Mesoamericans’ own view of their spectacular urban and ritual centers.

Though many well-known German philosophers have devoted considerable attention to music and its aesthetics, surprisingly few of their writings on the subject have been translated into English. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, a philosopher, and Oliver Fürbeth, a musicologist, here fill this important gap for musical scholars and students alike with this compelling guide to the musical discourse of ten of the most important German philosophers, from Kant to Adorno.

Music in German Philosophy includes contributions from a renowned group of ten scholars, including some of today’s most prominent German thinkers, all of whom are specialists in the writers they treat. Each chapter consists of a short biographical sketch of the philosopher concerned, a summary of his writings on aesthetics, and finally a detailed exploration of his thoughts on music. The book is prefaced by the editors’ original introduction, presenting music philosophy in Germany before and after Kant, as well as a new introduction and foreword to this English-language addition, which places contemplations on music by these German philosophers within a broader intellectual climate.

Chichén Itzá and Tula have long been conceived as “twin cities”—paired political capitals that share so many aspects of architectural plan, sculptural repertory, and iconographical motifs that they represent a unique case of cultural contact and artistic convergence in ancient Mesoamerica. This volume (originally published in 2007) revisits long-standing questions regarding the relationship between Chichén Itzá and Tula. Hailed as a “must read,” it quickly became a fundamental source for all Mesoamericanists.

Rather than approaching these cities through earlier notions of migrations and conquests, the volume considers their roles in the social, political, and economic relationships that emerged during the transition from the Epiclassic to the Early Postclassic period. The seventeen contributors utilize archaeological, art historical, anthropological, epigraphical, and ethnohistorical methods to demonstrate that the rise and florescence of the “twin cities” was the result of their success in adapting to complex processes of cultural change. These adaptations, along with the development of new types of political systems and the use of innovative visual and symbolic systems, permitted Chichén Itzá and Tula to emerge as dominant powers in Mesoamerica between the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods.