Dans sa recherche, Christina Halperin s’intéresse à la politique dans la culture des Mayas anciens en prenant pour axe central la maisonnée, sa politique économique, le genre, la matérialité et la vie quotidienne au sein de cette unité sociale. Sa bibliographie compte de nombreuses publications sur des sujets variés tels que la production des textiles Maya à la période classique, les figurines céramiques, l’analyse chimique des poteries polychrome et l’archéologie du paysage.

Son ouvrage le plus récent, Maya Figurines: Intersections between State and Household (University of Texas Press, 2014), porte sur les relations entre la maisonnée et l’État sous la perspective des petites figurines céramiques retrouvées dans des contextes d’unités domestiques. Elle a co-édité le livre, Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena (2009), primé par le CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. Depuis 1997, Christina Halperin a réalisé des fouilles archéologiques, des analyses en laboratoire et de la recherche muséale sur de nombreux sites aux Guatemala, Mexique, ainsi qu’au Bélize. Actuellement, elle dirige le Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal in Petén, au Guatemala afin d’examiner les interactions cosmopolites à la veille de l’effondrement politique des Mayas classiques.

BOOKS

Halperin, Christina T.

2023 Foreigners Among Us: Alterity and the Making of Maya Societies. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York.

Halperin, Christina T. and Lauren Schwartz (editors)

2017 Vernacular Architecture of the Pre-Columbian Americas. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York.

Halperin, Christina T.

2014 Maya Figurines: Intersections between State and Household. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Halperin, Christina T., Katherine A. Faust, Rhonda Taube, and Auore Giguet (editors)

2009  Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

JOURNAL ARTICLES (select)

Halperin, Christina T., Marta Lidia Perea, Katherine A. Miller Wolf, and Jean-Baptiste LeMoine

2024 A Pivot Point in Maya History: A Fire-Burning Event at K’anwitznal (Ucanal) and the Making of a New Era of Political Rule. Antiquity Vol. 0 (0): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.38.

Halperin, Christina T.

2024 Temporalities of Royal Costume in the Maya Lowlands. In Faces of Rulership in the Maya Lowlands, edited by Patricia A. McAnany and Marilyn A. Masson, pp. 191-221. Harvard University Press and Dumbarton Oaks Research Center and Library, Washington DC.

LeMoine, Jean-Baptiste, Christina T. Halperin, and Miriam Salas

2022 Maya Molded-carved Ceramics as Boundary Objects: Terminal Classic Ceramic Production and the Forging of Political Relations in the Mopan Valley of Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 68:101463. DOI:10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101463.

Halperin, Christina T., Yasmine Flynn-Arajdal, Katherine A. Miller Wolf, and Carolyn Freiwald

2021 Terminal Classic residential histories, migration, and foreigners at the Maya site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 64:101337. DOI:10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101337.

Halperin, Christina T.

2021 Figurines and the Materiality of Ancient Maya Humor. Americae 6:June 25 2021, https://americae.fr/dossiers/figurines-contextes/figurines-materiality-ancient-maya-humor/.

LeMoine, Jean-Baptiste, and Christina T. Halperin

2021 Shifting Social Relations during the Terminal Classic period (ca. AD 810–950/1000): Ceramics from the Lowland Maya Site of Ucanal. Ancient Mesoamerica 32(3):1–18. DOI:10.1017/S0956536121000183.

Halperin, Christina T.

2021 Ancient Maya Recycling: Considerations of the Wasteful, Meaningful, and Practical from the Maya Site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 1(1):1–27. doi.org/10.1007/s10816-020-09490-7.

LeMoine, Jean-Baptiste, and Christina T. Halperin

2021 Comparing INAA and pXRF Analytical Methods for Ceramics: A Case Study with Classic Maya Wares. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 36:102819. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.102819.

Freiwald, Carolyn, Christina T. Halperin, Camille Dubois Francoeur, Caroline Schlinsog, and Kimberly A. Bauer

2021 A Microscopic View of Maya Needle and Perforator Production at Ucanal, Guatemala. In Bones at a Crossroads: Integrating Worked Bone Research with Archaeometry and Social Zooarchaeology, edited by Markus Wild, Beverly A. Thurber, Stephen Rhodes, and Christian Gates St-Pierre, pp. 171–188. Sidestone Press, Leiden.

Halperin, Christina T. and Simon Martin

2020 Ucanal Stela 29 and the Cosmopolitanism of Terminal Classic Maya Stone Monuments. Latin American Antiquity 31(4):817-837. doi:10.1017/laq.2020.70

Halperin, Christina T., Jose Garrido Lopez, Miriam E. SalasPol, and Jean-Bapiste LeMoine

2020 Convergence Zone Politics at the Archaeological Site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(3): 476-493. doi:10.1017/S0956536120000085.

Halperin, Christina T., Carolyn Freiwald, and Gyles Iannone

2020 Borders, Frontiers, and Boundaries in the Maya World: Concepts and Theory. Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(3): 453-460. doi:10.1017/S0956536120000061.

Halperin, Christina T.

2019 Profane Illuminations: Classic Maya Molded Figurines in Comparative Context. RES Anthropology and Aesthetics, 71-72:25-39. https://doi.org/10.1086/704702.

Halperin, Christina T., Jean-Bapiste LeMoine, and Enrique Pérez Zambrano

2019 Infrastructures of Moving Water at the Maya site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 56(2019):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101102

Halperin, Christina T. and Jose Luis Garrido

2019 Architectural Aesthetics, Orientations, and Reuse at the Terminal Classic Maya Site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology, 45(1):41-66. doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2019.1676033

Halperin, Christina T., and Zachary X. Hruby

2019 A Late Postclassic (ca. 1350-1521 AD) Border Shrine at the site of Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 30(1):55-69. https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2018.77

Halperin, Christina T., Zachary X. Hruby, and Ryan W. Mongelluzzo

2018 The Weight of Ritual: Classic Maya Jade Head Pendants in the Round. Antiquity 92(363):758-771. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.65

Halperin, Christina T.

2017 Temporalities of Late Classic to Postclassic (ca. 600-1521 CE) Maya Figurines from Central Petén, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 28(4):515-540.

2017 How Animistic Entities Make History: Maya Materialities and Spiritualities over the Longue Durée. In Relational Engagements of the Indigenous Americas, edited by Melissa R. Baltus and Sarah E. Baires, pp. 87-108. Rowan & Littlefield Press, Lanham, MD.

2017 Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice. American Anthropologist 119(2):284-297. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12068

2017 Textile Techné: Classic Maya Translucent Cloth and the Making of Value. In Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Cathy Costin, pp.433-467. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.

2017 Ancient Cosmopolitanism: Feminism and the Rethinking of Maya Inter-regional Interactions during the Late Classic to Postclassic periods (ca. 600–1521 CE). Journal of Social Archaeology 17(3) 349–375. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605317730628