Photo by Aaron Salcido.
Traci Ardren is professor of anthropology at the University of Miami and co-directs Proyecto de Interacción Política del Centro de Yucatán, at the Classic Maya site of Yaxuná, in Yucatán, Mexico. She is the author of Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands: Gender, Age, Memory, and Place and editor of Ancient Maya Women and Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies: Archaeological Perspectives on Male and Female Work. Before taking part in a Zócalo/Getty Villa panel titled “What Can the Ancient World Teach Us About Feminism?” she spoke in the green room about The Ringling, her favorite Miami eatery, and her loquat tree.
What museum do you most admire?
I love the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, which is a Seminole Tribe of Florida museum that’s in the Everglades. It’s a world-class museum on a reservation, and I love it because, first of all, they have spared no expense. For example, there’s this beautiful room with mannequins that were made in life-size replicas of actual living tribal members. And there’s this beautiful boardwalk side. But, I also really love the message. They had a really strong message of, “We are here, we exist, we are not a relic of the past.” So, I always take students to that museum just because it’s spectacular, and the message is really cool.
What’s the best book you’ve read in the past year?
This spring I read a book called Plants as Persons. It’s a series of essays about plant agency written by humanists, mostly, some literary scholars, some scientists. And it’s really kind of breaking down this idea that plants are inanimate or passive and showing how they have helped shape culture and society. And I got really excited about it.
Why do you think it’s important we study the ancient world?
Everybody should know a little something about the ancient world because there’s so much variation that existed, there’s so much diversity of culture. We get stuck in thinking that everybody’s kind of like us or, you know, slightly different than us, just maybe, like, they didn’t have cars that drove as fast or phones that worked as well. And it’s so fascinating, the problems that people solved in the past and the very different ways they solved them. And then on the flip side of that, I also think it’s important to kind of feel like there’s this connection. Certain things are the same whether you’re in 300 B.C. or living in 2019, so, like, the way you feel about your family, or the way you feel when you make a good meal, that transcends that time. I feel like it gives people a sense of groundedness to understand that there’s this deep tie to human culture.
What do you think is one thing we misunderstand about the ancient world?
One thing? I think people believe it must have been very boring, that without all the entertainment that we have right now at our fingertips, that it must have been dull. But I think, actually, there were tremendous opportunities for both really good storytelling, kind of an intimate level… but then also, like, big, sort of theatrical rituals that people participated in where they were with a whole bunch of other people, hundreds of other people, experiencing some dramatic performance. Not to mention just the challenges of everyday life, I think, and being able to see the night sky without light pollution.
You grew up in and around The Ringling in Sarasota, Florida. What is it about this museum that fascinates you?
There’s nothing like being a kid and having access to areas that are closed off to the general public. And I guess I was fortunate that the museum wasn’t as strict as maybe as it should have been with security. I think the Ringling is also this really kind of bizarre, fascinating example of Florida, where you have this beautiful art museum and then you have this crazy, over-the-top Italian piazza, and you have also the circus museum. The time that I was a kid, the Circus Museum had this huge part that was like a recreation of a circus, with the train cars that people lived in, with the sounds of what it would have been like to be a member of the circus. It was just magical to be there. There was also a lot of broken statuary, because the Ringlings had this beautiful rose garden and these grounds that they had sculpted. A lot of broken statuary was kept in the gardening area, and we were friends with the gardeners, so that was a special place to explore.
What’s your favorite place to eat in Miami?
There are so many. Miami’s a very, very food-centric place. There’s a fish restaurant on the Miami River that’s really great, been there a long time, Garcia’s. And it’s a working river, so it’s not as beautiful as it might be—it’s becoming greener. But it’s, you know, there are fishing boats moving up and down the river as you sit on the water, and amazing seafood.
What’s your favorite plant?
I have so many favorite plants. Right now, I’m really in love with a loquat tree that I planted. A friend of mine grafted it from his tree, [and it] has very delicious fruit, and I planted it about a year ago, and it already made fruit this year. So I’m just a super huge fan of this tree. And loquats are delicious.
Where would we find you at 9 p.m. on a typical Friday night?
I might be at the movies. I really like to go to the movies.
What’s the one of the most surprising things you’ve learned about ancient Mayan civilization?
It’s really clear that in Maya society, there was a sense that gender was a fluid concept and a fluid experience. And so rather than being born solidly masculine or feminine, male or female, or intersex because there was a role for that, there were a series of things that you did to sort of become more clearly one or the other, so that gender became something that you solidified over the course of your childhood and then continued for the course of your lifetime. So, I find that a fascinating thing, and it surprised me when I first kind of learned about it.
If you didn’t live in the U.S., what country would you want to live in?
Mexico.
What’s your favorite season?
I love summer. I have no problem with being hot. I’m happy when it’s hot. In summer in Florida, there’s less traffic, fewer tourists, everything slows down a little bit, you go to the beach.
What teacher or professor changed your life, if any?
Oh, many. I had a high school English teacher who taught me how to write. I mean, I come from a family of writers, but she literally sat us down and gave us a set of skills—how to tap into that creative flow—and that was a mystery that I had never figured out beforehand. So, that really changed my life, I would say. We sat down with classical music, and we weren’t allowed to take the pen off the paper until we had finished the assignment, and then we just went back and cut pieces of paper to edit. It was very old school in that way, but it was really effective.