Colonial Spanish American Literatures | Colonial Women’s Writings in their Literary Context
Course Description
Study and textual analysis of the written discursive production, within its social, historical and cultural context, of women in Spanish America from the age of Discovery through the 18th-Century, and their literary relationships with Spanish Peninsular women writers. We work extensively on poetry, narrative and essay produced by women travelers (viajeras), nuns (monjas), novelists (novelistas) and poets (poetas) like Teresa de Cartagena, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Catalina de Erauso, María de Zayas, Ursula Suárez, among others. We pay attention to specific discourses used by women to talk/write about themselves and about other women to propose a textual frame for Hispanic women’s literary tradition.
Learning Goals
At the end of this class the students should be able to:
1. General knowledge of Latin America from the 16th-century European conquest to present day
2. Engage critically with literary texts within a specific historical context
3. Understanding the present in relation to the historical occurrences of the past
4. The ability to incorporate and explain learned material in relation to a specific topic
Required Materials
• Teresa de Cartagena, Admiraçión operum Dey
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Obras completas
• Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe
• Catalina de Erauso, Historia de la monja alférez
• Ursula Suárez, Relación autobiográfica
• María de San José, Autobiografía Espiritual
• Madre María Josefa Castillo, Su vida
• María de Zayas, Novelas amorosas y ejemplares
• Yo, la peor de todas. (dir. M. L. Bamberg, 1990)
Rocío Quispe-Agnoli 