Donna Van Bodegraven, a Spanish professor in the Department of Foreign Languages, presented a paper titled "'Chac Mool' de Carlos Fuentes: ?sincretismo deliberado?" ["'Chac Mool' by Carlos Fuentes: Deliberate Syncretism?"] at the X Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispa'nica [10th International Congress of Hispanic Literature] in San Juan, Puerto Rico on March 3, 2011.
In her presentation, Van Bodegraven analyzed how the Mexican author combined characteristics of two completely different figures from ancient Maya culture to create the unique title character in his short story.