The book introduces readers to literary links between this seventeenth-century prose of Sor María de Jesús de Agreda and other Spanish Baroque masterpieces. The author reexamines the original text and discovers significant dimensions regarding its historical, religious, and literary importance. His research of the novelesque form and "dialogical principles" operative in La mística ciudad de Dios provides convincing evidence of substantive prose literature.
Sor María de Agreda (1602-65) was a Spanish nun and visionary who is best known as the author of the widely read biography of the Virgin Mary, The Mystical City of God, and as the missionary who "bilocated" to the American Southwest, reportedly appearing to Indians there without ever leaving Spain. Her role as advisor to King Philip IV contributed further to her legend. Clark Colahan now offers the first major study of Sor María's writings, including translations of two previously unpublished works: Face of the Earth and Map of the Spheres and the first half of her Report to Father Manero, in which she reflects on her bilocation.
Historians of religion face complex interpretive issues when examining religious texts, practices, and experiences. Faithful Narratives presents the work of twelve eminent scholars whose research has exemplified compelling strategies for negotiating the difficulties inherent in this increasingly important area of historical inquiry. The chapters range chronologically from Late Antiquity to modern America and thematically from the spirituality of near eastern monks to women's agency in religion, considering familiar religious communities alongside those on the margins and bringing a range of spiritual and religious practices into historical focus. Focusing on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the essays address matters central to the study of religion in history, in particular texts and traditions of authority, interreligious discourse, and religious practice and experience. Some examine mainstream communities and traditions, others explore individuals who crossed religious or confessional boundaries, and still others study the peripheries of what is considered orthodox religious tradition. Encompassing a wide geographical as well as chronological scope, Faithful Narratives illustrates the persistence of central themes and common analytical challenges for historians working in all periods.
A History of Mexican Literature chronicles a story more than five hundred years in the making, looking at the development of literary culture in Mexico from its indigenous beginnings to the twenty-first century. Featuring a comprehensive introduction that charts the development of a complex canon, this History includes extensive essays that illuminate the cultural and political intricacies of Mexican literature. Organized thematically, these essays survey the multilayered verse and fiction of such diverse writers as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mariano Azuela, Xavier Villaurrutia, and Octavio Paz. Written by a host of leading scholars, this History also devotes special attention to the lasting significance of colonialism and multiculturalism in Mexican literature. This book is of pivotal importance to the development of Mexican writing and will serve as an invaluable reference for specialists and students alike.
Mexican Karismata chronicles the life of Francisca de los ?ngeles (1674?1744), theødaughter of a poor Creole mother and mestizo father who became a renowned holy woman in her native city of Querätaro, Mexico, during the high Baroque period. As a precocious young visionary and later as the headmistress of an important religious institution for women, Francisca actively partook in the project to revitalize the Catholic cult in New Spain?s northern regions led by her mentors, the Spanish missionaries of the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith. Her copious correspondence, containing hundreds of unedited letters, documents the personal experience of popular Catholicism during the high Baroque period in New Spain. Francisca?s journey to God did not follow prescribed hagiographical guidelines, drawing its inspiration instead from an eclectic mix of the doctrines of the Counter-Reformation, medieval spirituality, and local traditions. Her ecstatic apostolate to the dead and living often bordered on heresy but found acceptance and came to fruition under the protection of Querätaro?s ecclesiastical and secular elite. Her life shows how mystic rapture and sociability joined in this colonial variation of Early Modern Catholicism and demonstrates the remarkable vitality and openness of urban spirituality in the New World.
The last two volumes of Casanova's account of his extraordinary life include the story of his imprisonment in Buen Retiro, his trip to Madrid and his affair with Do a Ignacia, his journey to Barcelona and his detention in the Tower, his encounter with Lord Baltimore, and his serious illness in Aix-en-Provence when he is taken care of by a mysterious woman who turns out to the servant of one of his first loves, Henriette.
News of María of Ágreda's exceptional attributes spread from her cloistered convent in seventeenth-century Ågreda (Spain) to the court in Madrid and beyond. Without leaving her village, the abbess impacted the kingdom, her church, and the New World; Spanish Hapsburg king Felipe IV sought her spiritual and political counsel for over twenty-two years. Based upon her transcendent visionary experiences, Sor María chronicled the life of Mary, mother of Jesus of Nazareth, in Mystical City of God, a work the Spanish Inquisition temporarily condemned. In America, reports emerged that she had miraculously appeared to Jumano Native Americans - a feat corroborated by witnesses in Spain, Texas, and New Mexico, where she is honored today as the legendary "Lady in Blue." Lauded in Spain as one of the most influential women in its history, and in the United States as an inspiring pioneer, Sor María's story will appeal to cultural historians and to women who have struggled for equanimity against all odds. Marilyn Fedewa's biography of this fascinating woman integrates voluminous autobiographical, historical, and literary sources published by and about María of Ágreda. With liberal access to Sor María's papal delegate in Spain and convent archives in Ágreda, Fedewa skillfully reconstructs a historical and spiritual backdrop against which Sor María's voice may be heard. "Marilyn Fedewa has written a stirring portrait of María of Ágreda, a brilliant . . . remarkable player in major spiritual and secular events of [her] age." - Kenneth A. Briggs, former religion editor for the New York Times "A fascinating biography of an extraordinary woman told from the perspective of her 17th-century Spanish religious culture." - Clark A. Colahan, author of Visions of Sor María de Ágreda: Writing Knowledge and Power
Striking, inexplicable stories circulate among the people of Nuevo León in northern Mexico. Stories of conversos (converted Jews) who fled the Inquisition in Spain and became fabulously wealthy in Mexico. Stories of women and children buried in walls and under houses. Stories of an entire, secret city hidden under modern-day Monterrey. All these stories have no place or corroboration in the official histories of Nuevo León. In this pioneering ethnography, Marie Theresa Hernández explores how the folktales of Nuevo León encode aspects of Nuevolenese identity that have been lost, repressed, or fetishized in "legitimate" histories of the region. She focuses particularly on stories regarding three groups: the Sephardic Jews said to be the "original" settlers of the region, the "disappeared" indigenous population, and the supposed "barbaric" society that persists in modern Nuevo León. Hernández's explorations into these stories uncover the region's complicated history, as well as the problematic and often fascinating relationship between history and folklore, between officially accepted "facts" and "fictions" that many Nuevoleneses believe as truth.
Through a thoughtful consideration of the complexity of the religious landscape of the Atlantic basin, the collection provides an enriching portrayal of the intriguing interplay between religion, gender, ethnicity, and authority in the early modern Atlantic world.
