Katarzyna Mikulska works as associate professor at the Institute for Iberian and Iberoamerican Studies, Faculty of Modern Languages, University of Warsaw. Her research interests are: theory of writing, native American and non-European scripts, pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican divinatory codices, pre-Hispanic religion of Central Mexico, divinatory systems and practices.
She has extensively worked on deciphering the pre-Hispanic divinatory codices from ancient Mexico, mainly Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus B. She has given full courses on divinatory codices in different institutions in Poland and Mexico (Germany in 2021), as well as speeches and seminars in Spain (UCM), France (EPHE), Mexico (UNAM, CIESAS, El Colegio Mexiquense, CESMECA), United States (MSU), Great Britain (College of London), and the Netherlands (Leiden University). She has with original pre-Hispanic codices in the Vatican Library, National Library of France and Bodleian Library. She is an author of two monographic books (one of them nominated in 2016 to the Kotarbiński Prize as the most outstanding book in the field of humanities in Poland) and of ca. 40 articles and book chapters. She has also edited four volumes in international cooperation, two of them being the results of her last projects: one on the Graphic Communication System of pre-Hispanic central Mexico (2019) and the other on the Codex Vaticanus B (Vat. Lat. 3773).
Currently, apart from leading the AmerGraph project, she is also realizing a research fellowship at Montana State University (in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Galen Brokaw), and collaborating in international projects on the Codex Xolotl (NEH, USA, led by Dr. Benjamin Johnson), Codex Vaticanus A (led by Dr. Sergio Botta and Dr. Guilhem Olivier), Codex Cospi (led by Dr. Élodie Dupey, Dr. Davide Domenici and Dr. Guilhem Olivier), Codex Tonalamatl de Aubin (led by Dr. Guilhem Olivier), as well as on Mesoamerican visual metaphors (NCN, Poland, led by Dr. Julia Madajczak) and on a Mesoamerican system of representations of gods (with Prof. Danièle Dehouve and Dr. Loïc Vauzelle).
Contact: k.mikulska@uw.edu.pl
Additional information: https://uw.academia.edu/KatarzynaMikulska
List of co-workers/fellows involved in her sub-project
- Prof. Dr. Danièle Dehouve, EPHE, CNRS, Paris-Nanterre; France
- Prof. Dr. Galen Brokaw, Montana State University; USA
- Dr. Miguel Ángel Ruz Barrio, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Spain
- Dr. Manuel Hermann Lejarazu, CIESAS; Mexico
- Prof. Dr. Gordon Whittaker, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany
List of publications
Books
- 2015 Tejiendo destinos. Un acercamiento al sistema de comunicación gráfica en los códices adivinatorios. Zinacantepec (Estado de México): El Colegio Mexiquense, A.C., Institute for Iberian and Iberoamerican Studies (University of Warsaw).
- 2008 El lenguaje enmascarado. Un acercamiento a las representaciones gráficas de deidades nahua. Mexico, Institute for Anthropological Research of UNAM, Polish Society of Latinamerican Studies (PTSL), Institute for Iberian and Iberoamerican Studies of University of Warsaw.
Coordinated Books
- 2020 Nuevo comentario al Códice Vaticano B (Vat. Lat. 3773), with facsimil reproduction of the Ms. Codex Vaticanus B, Mexico, IIH-UNAM – ISIiI-University of Warsaw – Vatican Library
- 2019 with Jerome Offner, Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems: A Theoretical Approach, Louisville, University Press of Colorado, DOI: https:// doi .org/ 10 .5876/ 9781607329350
- 2015 with Patrick Lesbre, Identidad en palabras: nobleza indígena novohispana, Mexico-Warsaw, IIA-UNAM – ISIiI-University of Warsaw
- 2011 with José Contel, De dioses y hombres. Creencias y rituales mesoamericanos y sus supervivencias, Series Encuentros V., Warsaw, ISIiI-University of Warsaw – IRIEC-University of Toulouse
Selected papers in journals
- 2022 with Galen Brokaw, “Homo alphabeticus, la definición de la escritura y las escrituras mesoamericanas”. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 52 (2): 201-224. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/reaa.79509
- 2021 “The Deity as a Mosaic: Images of the God Xipe Totec in Divinatory Codices from Central Mesoamerica”, Ancient Mesoamerica, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000553
- 2021 with Manuel A. Hermann Lejarazu, “Creando el mundo, creando el discurso: similitudes entre los códices Borgia y Vindobonensis”, Revista Española de Antropología Americana, 51: 107-135. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/reaa.75963.
- 2018 “El enigma de la parte central del Ms. Aubin No 20 y la relación con sus copias,” Journal de la Société des américanistes, 104(1): 181–226.
- 2018 “Atravesando los portales: telas, libros y procedimientos adivinatorios en el México central prehispánico”, Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 56: 45-86.
- 2017 “¿El dios en mosaico? La composición de la imagen de la deidad en los códices adivinatorios,” Trace, 71: 40–75.
- 2016 with Roberto Martínez González, “La vida en el espejo: los mundos míticos y sus reflejos entre los nahuas del siglo XVI y otros pueblos de tradición mesoamericana,” Dimensión Antropológica, 68: 7–52.
- 2015 “Destronando a Ometeotl,” Latin American Literatures Journal, 31(1–2): 57–127.
- 2015 “El proceso de la elaboración de los códices Borgia y Vaticano B basado en su estudio codicológico,” Revista Española de Antropología Americana, 45(1): 167–192.
- 2014 “On numbers, tables and calendars: When writing appeared,” Contributions In New World Archaeology, Special Issue: “Mesoamerican Writing Systems”. 7: 47–72.
- 2010 “«Secret Language» in Oral and Graphic Form. Religious-magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts”, Oral Tradition, http://journal.oraltradition.org/