The Toledo Blade interviewed Elizabeth Bell, Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese, about the upcoming December 21, 2012 apocalypse predictions. Bell explains that there are competing interpretations of the end of the 13th cycle of the Mayan calendar. The title of the resulting article is "Doomsday Debunked: So-called Mayan world-ending prediction lacks credibility, experts say."

Congratulations are also in order for Elizabeth's recent publication of "Pirates of our Spirituality: The 2012 Apocalypse and the Value of Heritage in Guatemala" in Latin American Perspectives, published by Sage Journals. In the article, Bell argues that in recent years, "the Mayas of Guatemala have subversively used the global market provided by tourism to survive economically, recover their cultural property, and reclaim their heritage."