Colonial Angels: Narratives of Gender and Spirituality in Mexico, 1580-1750

Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela

Published by University of Texas Press 2000

Colonial Angels

Narratives of Gender and Spirituality in Mexico, 1580-1750

Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela

https://doi.org/10.7560/777477

Overview
Contents

About this book

Spain's attempt to establish a "New Spain" in Mexico never fully succeeded, for Spanish institutions and cultural practices inevitably mutated as they came in contact with indigenous American outlooks and ways of life. This original, interdisciplinary book explores how writing by and about colonial religious women participated in this transformation, as it illuminates the role that gender played in imposing the Spanish empire in Mexico.

The author argues that the New World context necessitated the creation of a new kind of writing. Drawing on previously unpublished writings by and about nuns in the convents of Mexico City, she investigates such topics as the relationship between hagiography and travel narratives, male visions of the feminine that emerge from the reworking of a nun's letters to her confessor into a hagiography, the discourse surrounding a convent's trial for heresy by the Inquisition, and the reports of Spanish priests who ministered to noble Indian women. This research rounds out colonial Mexican history by revealing how tensions between Spain and its colonies played out in the local, daily lives of women.

Author / Editor information

Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela is a Research Fellow in Hispanic Studies at King's College, Cambridge.

Reviews

This is a fascinating, well-written, and suggestive account of the intersections of gender and genre in writing by and about religious women in colonial Mexico.... Sampson's overview of these women's narratives provides a wealth of information about the personal lives and thoughts of a doubly silenced group: cloistered religious women.

— Catherine Jaffe

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Chapter 1. Moving Stories: New Spanish Hagiographies and Their Relation to Travel Narrative Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Chronicles of a Colonial Cloister: The Convent of San JoseÂ and the Mexican Carmelites Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
Chapter 3. From the Confessional to the Altar: Epistolary and Hagiographic Forms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Chapter 4. The Exemplary Cloister on Trial: San JoseÂ in the Inquisition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Chapter 5. Cacique Nuns: From Saints' Lives to Indian Lives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Afterword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
Appendix 1 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Appendix 2 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Appendix 3 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 222

eBook

Published: February 20, 2014
ISBN: 9780292745193