Davíd Carrasco ’67 (left), professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University with a Joint Appointment in the Harvard Divinity School and the Department of Anthropology, will interpret a Mexican national treasure in the annual Ridington Lecture, ”Labyrinth, City and Eagle's Nest: Ritual Ordeals in a Mexican Codex,” at 8 p.m. March 23 in WMC Alumni Hall.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, call 410-857-2294.

The pictorial “Mapa de Cuauhtinchan #2,” a masterpiece of early colonial Mexican iconography, tells how the people of Cuauhtinchan went through a series of ritual ordeals including a labyrinth, human sacrifice, warfare and magical flight in order to find their homeland.

Carrasco is an historian of religions at Harvard Divinity School. He previously taught at the University of Colorado, Princeton University, and the University of Adelaide. He earned a Th.M., MA, and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

In addition to many scholarly books, articles and reviews, Carrasco is editor-in-chief of the three-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. He co-produced the film “Alambrista: The Director's Cut,” which spotlights the struggles of undocumented Mexican farm workers in America. The film’s original version won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 1977.

In 2004, The Mexican government awarded Carrasco the “Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle,” its highest honor for a foreign national. In 2003, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and  Sciences.

The William and Edith Ridington Annual Lectureship honors two long-time teachers at the College and friends of the campus.

William Ridington joined the full-time faculty in 1938 and retired in 1973, while Edith began a 20-year career as an adjunct lecturer in 1957. After the Ridingtons’ deaths, their family endowed the series, which began in 1991.