Professor Davíd Carrasco Receives Professional Achievement Award

October 19, 2020
Professor David Carrasco
Professor Davíd Carrasco. Photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at HDS, is the recipient of the alumni professional achievement award from McDaniel College. Carrasco graduated from McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland) College with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1967.

Presented annually during McDaniel’s Homecoming, the alumni professional achievement award is presented to a graduate who has gained distinction in his chosen field or profession and whose accomplishments reflect admirably on McDaniel College.

Carrasco has spent nearly 20 years at Harvard Divinity School where he serves as the inaugural Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America with a joint appointment with the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Prior to that role, Carrasco was a professor of history of religions at Princeton University from 1993 to 2001, becoming the first Mexican-American tenured professor in the school’s history.

In addition to his degree from McDaniel, Carrasco obtained his Master of Theology in 1970 and a doctorate degree in philosophy in 1977 from the University of Chicago.

Through his time at the University of Chicago, Carrasco focused his studies on the question, “where is your sacred place.” Alongside Mexican archaeologists, Carrasco dug into the research behind the sites of Teotihuacan and Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which led to his books Religions of Mesoamerica, City of Sacrifice, and Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire.

An award-winning author and editor of more than 15 books, Carrasco also serves as the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Best Reference Work of 2001. He has received outstanding teaching awards from both the University of Colorado and Harvard University.

He lectures widely in the United States and abroad and was awarded the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, which is the highest honor the Mexican government presents to a foreign national, and the Mircea Eliade Jubilee Medal awarded by the Romanian President as a sign of appreciation for contributions to the study of the history of religion. His professional affiliations include the Mexican Academy of History and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Carrasco has returned to McDaniel to give lectures in 1980, 1993, 1994, 2009, and 2012, and was previously awarded the college’s alumni citizenship award. He also received an honorary degree from the college in 1984.