Indigenous Writings from the Convent: Negotiating Ethnic Autonomy in Colonial Mexico by Mónica Díaz (review) (original) (raw)

The Catholic Historical Review, 2013

Abstract

Colonial Latin American women’s studies have experienced much attention in the last decades, with literary studies that have emphasized the relation of women with mainstream religious institutions (Catholic Church, Inquisition). Many scholars have provided glimpses into religious women’s daily lives and expressions of resistance against power (usually male ecclesiastical authorities).This attention has resulted in a significant amount of studies of religious women’s writings in the last thirty years, and new approaches are needed to expand the canon of this subgenre. In this scholarly context, Mónica Díaz’s book offers new ways to read “conventual writing” at the same time that she reflects about theoretical notions that need reformulation within this genre in at least two directions in literary studies. First, Díaz approaches conventual writing considering both transatlantic and hemispheric studies that question traditional borders of twentieth-century academic knowledge. Second, Díaz’s overall scholarship examines issues of ethnicity and the fluidity of key concepts such as gender roles and identity, while looking into the feminine perception of the world as well as the construction of sources of knowledge by female subjects.

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