Biography
Ixq’anil Judith Marie Maxwell, PhD, holds the Louise Rebecca Schawe and Williedell Schawe Chair at Tulane University, where she directs the Native American and Indigenous Studies program. She received her PhD in anthropology and linguistics from the University of Chicago in 1982. Her fields of study include linguistics, Mayan languages, language revitalization, discourse, the Tunica language of Louisiana and Native North America. Her research also addresses language standardization, maintenance and shift, bilingual and multicultural education, and questions of language, identity and authenticity.
Dr. Maxwell began working with the Mayan languages of Guatemala in 1973 as an associate of the Francisco Marroquín Linguistics Project, initially collaborating with Chuj and Ixil linguistic communities. Since then, she has researched, taught and produced educational materials, workshops and seminars involving Mayan languages throughout Guatemala. Her work has included collaborations with the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala, the Ministry of Education, the Judicial Branch of the Secretariat for Indigenous Peoples of Guatemala, DIGEBI (Dirección General de Educación Bilingüe-Intercultural), UNESCO, Universidad Mariano Gálvez and Universidad Rafael Landívar, as well as the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas in El Salvador. She has also contributed to the study of Nahuatl, Pipil, Han (Athapaskan), Tunica and Biloxi.
In 1987, Dr. Maxwell established Oxlajuj Aj, Tulane University’s Kaqchikel language and cultural program. Since 2010, she has collaborated with the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana’s Language and Culture Revitalization Program to recover and teach Tunica, a language whose last native speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant, died in 1948. Together they founded Kuhpani Yoyani Luhchi Yoroni, a Tunica language research, recovery and teaching working group. The collaboration has produced an online interactive dictionary, a beginning language textbook, children’s books and other educational resources. Dr. Maxwell, her students and tribal language specialists also provide immersive language and cultural experiences, including summer and winter programs. More than 100 tribal youth and a similar number of Tulane students have developed basic conversational skills in Tunica through these efforts.
In 2024, Dr. Maxwell joined Biloxi scholars working to revitalize the Biloxi language, whose last speaker died in 1935. Outreach to tribal members has begun, and Biloxi is now being taught alongside Tunica in winter immersion programs and summer camps.
Dr. Maxwell’s publications include 15 books, 84 chapters and articles, 14 encyclopedia entries, three educational compact discs, 10 academic digital publications, 33 pedagogical books on Mayan languages, 13 booklets for the Chuj and Ixil communities, and three publications in Tunica.
Her courses include Native America: An Introduction; Language and Culture; Semantics: Linguistic Approaches to Meaning; Lexicography; Native American Languages and Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Language and Power; Language Death; Beginning Kaqchikel Language; Intermediate Kaqchikel Language; Kaqchikel Culture; and Tunica: Louisiana’s Sleeping Language.