HIST 483/583 Instructor: Wood S
Topic: Mexico's Women Icons

Office Hours
CRN: 15730/15731 Time/Location:
15:00-17:50 H / 360 CON

COURSE DESCRIPTION

In this course we will seek a greater understanding of the gendered construction of Mexico's ethnonational self-identity (mexicanidad), through an exploration of some of its more salient women icons. We will see how symbols and rhetoric can be powerful tools for building or reinforcing social relations of authority. We will explore the supposedly more "objective" historical record and the more "subjective" popular lore surrounding these figures. In the process, we will seek windows into the negotiation of history and myth by those manipulating gendered images for political ends, whether to strengthen traditional patriarchal ideology or, more recently, to contest it.

COURSE POLICIES

Students will prepare the required readings for each week, as outlined below, for discussion and for written analysis. They will also select one or more additional sources from the supplementary bibliographies for a five-minute oral presentation (for a possible 10 points), comparing and contrasting the supplementary material with the other course materials (books, articles, songs, overheads, films, etc.). Oral presentations can be done individually or with a partner. Oral presentations will take place during class time, during the second week of each of the five units. Each student will sign up the first week to give an oral presentation during the unit of her/his choice. Written work for the course will consist of writing a five two-page essays, one on each of the five icons (for a possible 10 points each, due at the start of class during the second week of each unit, and covering the required readings for that week), and submitting a final six to eight-page paper (for a possible 40 points) at the end of the term (Tuesday, Dec. 8, by 5pm, 272 PLC) that refines and amplifies themes tackled in one of the two-page essays, incorporates material from the oral presentation and additional recommended readings, and, if appropriate, includes some analysis of websites for that same unit. Those who choose to amplify the fifth of the two-page essays (on Frida Kahlo) for their final paper may ask for the return of that two-page essay by Friday, Dec. 4. They are also encouraged not to postpone the extra reading required for the final paper until the last two weeks of class. Borderline course grades will rise if the student's participation in course discussions over the term has been notable.

Graduate students will write 4-6 page (instead of two-page) essays every two weeks and their final paper should be fifteen pages. Graduate students will also be expected to be especially active participants in class discussions.

There will be no midterm or final exam.

Grading                      

oral presentation 10%
five papers @ 10 points each 50%
one paper @ 40 points 40%
TOTAL 100pts

The course grade will break down as follows:

Totals of

100-93 points = A;

92-90 = A-;

89-87 = B+;

86-83 = B;

82-80 = B-;

79-77 = C+;

76-73 = C;

72-70 = C-;

69-67 = D+;

66-63 = D;

62-60 = D-;

59 and lower = F.

Essay Guidelines As you prepare your two-page essay that will be due in class every two weeks, beginning the second week, and even your final essay, think about how the material for each particular unit addresses these general questions: Is it accurate to consider this unit's figure an icon (what is an icon, how is it constituted, what impact does it have, etc.)? How has this unit's figure served, if at all, to symbolize or define in some way Mexican nationhood and culture (mexicanidad)? Has this figure come to have a clear, gendered symbolism, perhaps one that has evolved, and perhaps with different meanings in competing discourses? Has this figure been used to bolster patriarchal social organization? Has it been reformulated to contest such organization or to represent an alternative one? By whom and why? Are there multiple portraits of this figure (and why)? What is its relevance for Chicanas/os and how does the symbolism in Mexico compare with that in the United States? What is its relevance (if any) for those who do not see themselves as members of the Mexican nation or ethnicity, or the U.S. Chicano/Latino/Hispanic ethnicities? How or why are they (or we) finding meaning in this image? What are the larger humanist issues that arise? Feminist issues? In pulling together your comments, be sure to refer to the required readings, citing them by author, date of publication, and page numbers in parenthesis; footnotes or endnotes are not required. If you respond to a film or other non-standard texts, be sure to also integrate a consideration of some of the readings.

If you prefer to take less of a substantive approach and more of a historiographical/methodological approach, consider these questions in your essays: What are we learning about the uses and meaning of history? How do different genres compare (films, paintings, songs, dances, poems, scholarly texts, websites, novels, plays, etc.) in the way they attempt to convey their message or the way those messages are received? How and why are some expressive forms given legitimacy and some denigrated (and by whom, why?)? Is there a valid distinction to be made between popular culture and scholarship? How do we identify subjectivity, bias, or agendas (open or hidden) in our sources? When there are competing interpretations or perspectives in our sources, how do we identify a personal truth that speaks to us individually? Is there an objective truth? To illustrate your arguments or points, draw examples for the required readings and other course materials, such as films, imagery, music, etc.

The final essay should have sufficient length to discuss both substantive and methodological issues, if you so choose. Let's have all the papers typed with double-spacing, one-inch margins all around, and a normal-sized font. If you analyze a website, you must include the URL (address) and the date you were able to consult it. Since websites change and disappear, it might also be helpful if you could print out at least part of the website and attach it to your paper. Student-authored websites can be included in the material you critique, but do not try to download another student's material to present as your own. Full bibliographies are not required, but do please give a full citation for any book or article you address that is not already on the syllabus.

Late work is strongly discouraged, but it will be accepted. Without a doctor's note, late papers will be docked five percentage points (about half a grade) per day late, weekends included. Late papers should be slipped under Professor Wood's office door (272 PLC), but be sure to keep a copy. Loss is not the responsibility of the professor.

Required and Recommended Readings There are no books to buy and there is no packet. To save you money, in lieu of a packet, I have put most materials on traditional and electronic reserve (you can call up the latter on your terminal at home or anywhere on campus, starting at the Janus homepage, http://libweb.uoregon.edu). To access electronic reserve materials you need to know the user name (fall98) and the password (donald). This is designed to limit access to the UO community. Below you will see the following abbreviations telling you where to find the various copies of the readings. PTR = photocopy on traditional reserve; BTR = book on traditional reserve; ER = item on electronic reserve. Another source for some of the recommended articles is the Expanded Academic Index, ASAP Database (EAI/ASAP), articles accessible online via the UO Library Catalog, Indexes, Periodical Articles. There may also be a few items here that you will have to track down using other means (going to the regular stacks, interlibrary loan, Orbis loan, etc.). Obviously, there are additional relevant materials not included in these lists; please consult with the professor about using such materials. The final essay is not intended to be a research paper but a guided response to carefully selected materials (you have greater freedom, however, in selecting websites to analyze).

 

REQUIRED TEXTS

Required reading will include a selection of translated colonial documents and one or two brief scholarly articles, to be made available through  both traditional and electronic reserves. 

There will also be several required books:

Fernando Cervantes, The Devil in the New World:  The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (1994). 

Cervantes examines the ways in which the  idea and worship of the Devil as a deity in parallel to Christ made its way into indigenous culture (linked to the survival of precontact perceptions of the cosmos among the conquered native peoples) despite the best efforts of the Catholic clergy to discourage this situation.  The book also analyzes Devil worship among other sectors of New Spain's colonial society.

William A. Christian, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (1989). 

An engaging study of beliefs and practices at the village level. Many  of these religious ideas came to Spanish America with the conquerors and settlers.  For this reason, the book will not only allow us to  understand more about Catholicism and religious ideology in Spain during the time of the Spiritual conquest, but also allow us to identify influences of "everyday religion" from Spain on the situation in the Americas.

Alfredo Lopez Austin, The Rabbit on the Face of the Moon:  

Mythology in the Mesoamerican Tradition (1996).  Brief and accessible presentation of a series of precontact stories and beliefs with profound sacred implications.  This book will help us understand crucial elements of Mesoamerican religious ideology that eventually tempered indigenous acceptance and understanding of Christianity.

Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest Accomplished by the Religious of the Society of Jesus in the Province of Paraguay (1993). 

First hand account written by one of the founders of the famous Jesuit mission system in Paraguay.  Includes a wealth of details about Guarani culture, as well as the aims and attitudes of the missionary friars.  There is also adventure in this account, as Ruiz describes his leadership of a mass relocation of mission Guarani to escape the mennace of Spanish and Portuguese slave hunters.

Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches:  Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (1987). 

Masterful and controversial study of Andean gender ideologies, especially as they were expressed in religious terms.  Silverblatt investigates the impact of both Incan and Spanish imperialism on gender, and examines women's religious activities in both the pre- and post-conquest eras.  Among other things, the author argues that some post-conquest Andean women, branded "witches" by the Catholic authorities, assumed leading roles as preservers of traditional Andean religious beliefs and practices.  Their resistance to the "Spiritual Conquest" played an important role in the persistance of indigenous ways in the highlands.

Lisa Sousa, et al, The Story of Guadalupe:  Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei Tlamahuizoltica ["through a great miracle"] of 1649 (1998). 

The authors present us with commentary and an excellent English translation of the first significant indigenous language narrative of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Originally written in Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), this seventeenth-century account begins with Juan Diego's astonishing encounter with the Virgin on the hill of Tepeyacac and ends with a series of brief miracle stories, including one in which the power of the Virgin drives an evil serpent out of the belly of an afflicted Spanish woman.  Entertaining in its own right, The Story of Guadalupe will help us understand how traditional indigenous religious imagery was enlisted to tell a Christian story.  From this point of departure, we can also begin to understand how this kind of presentation may have sent unintended spiritual messages to the indigenous audience, allowing them to interpret Christianity in terms of the same kinds of "pagan" beliefs that the Church hoped to erradicate.

 

COURSE SCHEDULE

Unit I: La Malinche (ca. 1500-1527) Steve J. Stern, in The Secret History of Gender (342), remarks that "La Malinche [a.k.a. Malintzin, Doña Marina, La Chingada, La Llorona] has served as a powerful symbol conjoining the themes of woman's violation and woman's treachery into the image of woman's deserved violation." It would be difficult to overestimate the weight of the baggage this indigenous woman has had attached to her memory over the past five centuries. Let's trace the construction of the many personas attributed to her: if we can detect it, who was she in her own eyes, in the eyes of her family, the various communities where she lived, the Spaniards who received her as part of a "gift" of twenty women, Cortés (for whom she served as interpreter and mediator, mistress and bearer of his mestizo child), her Spanish husband, nationalists who later gave her a disparaging place in the construction of an anti-imperialist narrative, and modern biographers and their audiences? Can we separate the person from the myth? How does her life compare to that of other women of New Spain? Is doña Marina being redeemed? If so, how/why?

View: Overhead images and slides of doña Marina as portrayed in codices; a slide-show from choreographer Lisa Arkin about the Malinche figure in New Mexico folklore; and, possibly clips from The Buried Mirror: Conflict of the Gods, The Captain from Castile, The Conquest of Mexico (MEDIA SVC VT1431), and/or Hernan Cortez: Dateline Yesterday (MEDIA SVC VT1434).

Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 1 (9/30): Jerome R. Adams, "Doña Marina (La Malinche), c. 1505-1530," 13-25, Notable Latin American Women: Twenty-Nine Leaders, Rebels, Poets, Battlers and Spies, 1500-1900 [ER]; "Bernal Díaz del Castillo on Doña Marina or La Malinche," [ER; excerpts from The Conquest of New Spain]; excerpt from Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (1984), 100-102 [2 copies, PTR]; "Octavio Paz on Hijos de la Chingada or Sons of Malinche," [ER; excerpts from The Labyrinth of Solitude, BTR].

Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 2 (10/7): Max Harris, "Moctezuma's Daughter: The Role of La Malinche in Mesoamerican Dance," Journal of American Folklore 109:432 (1996), 149-177 [two copies, PTR]; Carla Trujillo, "Introduction," ix, and Emma Perez, "El Chingón: Octavio Paz and the Oedipal-Conquest-Complex," 167-169, in Carla Trujillo, ed., Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (Berkeley, 1991) [ER, BTR]; Mary Louise Pratt, "'Yo Soy La Malinche': Chicana Writers and the Poetics of Ethnonationalism," Callaloo 16:4 (1993), 859-873 [ER]; "'Malinche' Lyrics by El Vez" [ER]; "El Vez, Chicano Musician--Discography from the Internet," [ER]; "Discography on the Legend of La Llorona" [ER].

Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations and Final Papers: Frances Karttunen, "Rethinking Malinche," in Indian Women of Early Mexico, Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett, eds., 290-312 and 420-424 (1997) [BTR]; Monica Palacios, "La Llorona Loca: The Other Side," 49-51, in Carla Trujillo, ed., Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991) [BTR]; Jean Wyatt, "On Not Being La Malinche: Border Negotiations of Gender in Sandra Cisneros's 'Never Marry a Mexican' and 'Woman Hollering Creek," Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 14:2 (Fall 1995), 243-271 [PTR]; Sandra Messinger Cypess, "The Figure of La Malinche in the Texts of Elena Garro," 117-135, in Anita K. Stoll, ed., A Different Reality: Studies on the Work of Elena Garro (Lewisburg, 1990) [PTR]; Amanda Levinson, Mujeres Chingadas and Atravesidas: The Virgin of Guadalupe, La Malinche, and the Creation of an Alternate Chicana Aesthetic Tradition (Portland: Reed College, 1997) [PTR]; Norma Alarcón, "Chicana Feminist Literature: A Re-Vision through Malintzín/or Malintzín: Putting Flesh Back on the Object," in Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2d. ed. (New York, 1983), 182-190; Sandra Messinger Cypess, La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth (1992) [BTR]; Steve J. Stern, The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (1995), 342-344; Raúl Niño, "Hijo de la Malinche," poem in Barrio Streets, Carnival Dreams: Three Generations of Latino Artistry, Lorie Marie Carlson, ed., (1996), 51-53 [ER]; Haniel Long, The Marvellous Adventure of Cabeza de Vaca; also, Malinche (a dramatic play), 39-76 (too long for copyright concerns; but I have a copy I could loan); William P. English and Graciela Dominguez de English, Malinche, Research on: Including "the other doña Marina" (1978) [PTR]; James Lockhart, ed., We People Here (1992; contains indigenous versions of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, with numerous images of doña Marina) [BTR]; Maruxa Vilalta, comp., Antología de obras en un acto (v. 2, Malinche y Carlota) [BTR]; Adelaida R. del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenépal: A Preliminary Look into a New Perspective," in Essays on La Mujer 124-149 (1977).

Websites to Explore: A search of the word "malinche" on Altavista registered 1430 websites. Browse and see what is worth your attention. Examples: New York Times article of 3/26/97 about doña Marina's house in Coyoacan and Mexicans' ambivalence about making it an official historical site <http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/la.htm>. Or see "Malinche, Llorona, Virgen de Guadalupe" <http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rpearce/MultiC_Web/ MalincheLV.html>.

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Unit II: The Virgin of Guadalupe (apparition date, 12/8/1531) Historians Dirk Raat and Bill Beezley have said that "it is nearly impossible to describe contemporary Mexico and its history" without reference to this dark-skinned version of the Christian Virgin Mary. Her powerful image is ubiquitous, appearing not only in churches, but also in homes, marketplaces, and even in taxis. Anthropologist Hugo Nutini finds that she is revered by some people more than "God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost." How can we account for her intense and enduring popularity? What in her image appealed to the Spanish conquerors, the American-born Spaniards, to people of mixed heritage, and to indigenous peoples? How has the history of her apparition and elements of her worship been modified over time and for what ends? What is the relationship between Marian devotion and marianismo (the cult of motherly devotion and self-sacrifice, of women's perceived spiritual superiority) in Mexico? In the twentieth century, how did she become the symbol for the Mexican revolution without leading the charge for a radical reconstruction of gender roles? Has she been a symbol that leads to oppression or liberation? How do Chicanas/os read or encode her image today? This unit will begin with an examination of the Virgin Mary in Europe and then shift to Mexico.

View: Processione (about the worship of the Virgin Mary in Italy; with discussion led by Professor Barbara Pope); Flowers for Guadalupe: The Virgin of Guadalupe Inspires Mexican Women (57 min. MEDIA SVC VT4165); and, possibly clips from Columbus and the Age of Discovery: The Sword and the Cross, The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas, The Buried Mirror: Conflict of the Gods, and/or Women of Latin America: To Be a Mother in Latin America (MEDIA SVC VT4164).

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 3 (10/14): "Readings on the Virgin Mary in Western Tradition," [ER, excerpted from two books, Hail Mary? The Struggle for Ultimate Womanhood in Catholicism, and Alone of All Her Sex, BTR]; Stafford Poole, C.M., "Virgin of Guadalupe," in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Barbara A. Tenenbaum, ed., 3:105-105 [two copies, PTR, and the book, noncirculating, is available in the reference room of the Knight library]; Jeanette Favrot Peterson, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?" Art Journal 51:4 (Winter 1992), 39-47 [two copies, PTR].

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 4 (10/21): Sandra Cisneros, "Guadalupe the Sex Goddess," [PTR]; Rubén Martínez, "The Undocumented Virgin," [PTR]; Margaret Randall, "Guadalupe, Subversive Virgin," [PTR]; and Guillermo Gómez Peña, "The Two Guadalupes" [PTR] [all these pieces are from Ana Castillo, ed., Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe (1996), which is already out of print]; "'Viva la Raza' lyrics by El Vez" [ER].

Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations and Final Papers: Matt Smith, "Guadalupe Icon Comes to U.S.," on the Virgin of Guadalupe as an anti-abortion symbol [EAI/ASAP]; June Nash, "Gendered Deities and the Survival of Culture," [EAI/ASAP]; "The Virgin of Guadalupe," in Robert M. Carmack, Janine Gasco, and Gary H. Gossen, eds., The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996), 191-192; Eric Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol," Journal of American Folklore 71 (198), 34-39 [ER]; Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico from the Aztecs to Independence (1994), 131-157 and 213-217; passages from Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (1961) [BTR]; Jeanette Rodriguez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican-American Women (1994) [BTR]; Stafford Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797 (1995) [BTR]; Mary O'Connor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior," The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28:2 (June 1989), 109-; Amanda Levinson, Mujeres Chingadas and Atravesidas: The Virgin of Guadalupe, La Malinche, and the Creation of an Alternate Chicana Aesthetic Tradition (Portland, 1997); William B. Taylor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain: An Inquiry into the Social History of Marian Devotion," American Ethnologist 14:1 (1987), 9-33; Luis Leal, "Female Archetypes in Mexican Literature," in Women in Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols, Beth Miller, ed. (1983); Mary O'Connor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28: 2 (1989), 105-119; Donald K. Kurtz, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Politics of Becoming Human," Journal of Anthropological Research 38 (1982), 194-210; Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley, 1995) [BTR]; Xavier Noguez, Documentos guadalupanos: Un estudio sobre las fuentes de información tempranas en torno a las mariofanías en el Tepeyac (1993); Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole, C.M., and James Lockhart, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuicoltica of 1649 (1998); Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican Consciousness, 1531-1813 (1974) [BTR]; Donald Demarest and Coley Taylor, The Dark Virgin: The Book of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1956); Helen Behrens, America's Treasure: The Virgin Mary of Guadalupe (1963); Francisco de la Maza, El guadalupismo mexicano (1981) [BTR]; Joaquín González Moreno, Iconografía guadalupana [BTR]; Guadalupe: From the Aztec (1996) (from an Oregon monastery; available through ILL, or borrow from Professor Wood); Ena Campbell, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Female Self-Image," in James J. Preston, ed., Mother Worship (1982), 5-24; Dana Salvo, Home Altars of Mexico (1997) provides for a study of personal worship of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Websites to Explore: A search of "+guadalupe" and "+virgin" caught 3878 matches using the Altavista search engine. There is much material here for analysis. A couple of examples: Anthony DePalma, "Doubt the Virgin of Guadalupe? Not Likely," New York Times News Service (6/20/96) <http://www.latinolink.com/opinion/0620lvir.htm>; Melita Marie Garza, "Taking Back the Virgin of Guadalupe," Hispanic Link News Service (1996) <http://205.134.250.196/art/1208avie.htm>. A fascinating study of Yolanda López's "Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe" can be found at <http://mati.eas.asu.edu:8421/~getty/html_pages/YLopezIssOutl.html>.

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Unit III: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (11/12/1651?-4/17/1695) This seventeenth-century intellectual-nun once wrote "I am not at all what you think...Borne on your feather-pens' plumes my flight is no longer mine." Her words haunt us today as we struggle to identify who she was in her own context and to establish what her memory has contributed to the evolving Mexican national identity over the years. Why was she censored and censured? How does Mexican writer Octavio Paz's rendition of her life story compare to that of the Argentine filmmaker María Luisa Bemberg's? What have others found out about Sor Juana's past? How did her life compare to other women's lives in New Spain? How do we account for her elevation to near sainthood among (post)modern women who read her poetry today?

View: Yo, la peor de todas/I, The Worst of All (Argentina; drama; MEDIA SVC VT2975 c. 2); and possibly clips from Voices of Latin America (Smithsonian World documentary) and/or The Buried Mirror: The Age of Gold.

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 5 (10/28): Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell, eds. and transl., The Answer = La Respuesta (1994), introduction and poem 92 [BTR for a different course, also one copy, PTR]; Dorothy Schons, "Some Obscure Points in the Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz," in Stephanie Merrim, ed., Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1991) [BTR, and one copy, PTR]; Rosario Castellanos, "Once Again Sor Juana," (originally written in 1963) 22-25, in Maureen Ahern, ed., A Rosario Castellanos Reader: An Anthology of Her Poetry, Short Fiction, Essays, and Drama (1988) [ER].

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 6 (11/4): Emilie L. Bergmann, "Abjection and 'Ambiguity': Lesbian Desire in Bemberg's Yo, la peor de todas," unpublished ms. [2 copies PTR]; E. J. Levy, "Introduction," 1-9, and Alicia Gaspar de Alva, "Excerpts from the Sapphic Diary of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," 182-190, in E. J. Levy, ed., Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers (1995) [BTR]; Tamsin Wilton, "Invisible and Erased: Uses and Abuses of History," 51-59, in Lesbian Studies: Setting an Agenda (London, 1995) [ER, BTR].

Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations and Final Papers: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and a Dream (1997) [BTR]; Stephanie Merrim, Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1991) (there are other contributions to this book worth reading) [BTR]; Georgina Sabat-Rivers, St Joseph's Day Lecture: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sor Marcela de San Félix: Their Devotion to St. Joseph as the Antithesis of Patriarchal Authoritarianism (1997) [BTR]; Beatriz Melano Couch, "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: The First Woman Theologian in the Americas," 51-57, in John C. B. and Ellen Low Webster, eds., The Church and Women in the Third World (1985) [PTR]; Emilie L. Bergmann, "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Dreaming in a Double Voice," in Emilie L. Bergmann, ed., Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America: Seminar on Feminism and Culture in Latin America (1990), 151-172 [BTR]; Nina M. Scott, "Sor Juana and Her World," Latin American Research Review 29:1 (1994), 143-154; Jean Franco, "Sor Juana Explores Space," 23-29 (plus notes), in Jean Franco, Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (1989) [BTR]; Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, or the Traps of Faith (1988) [BTR]; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, A Sor Juana Anthology (1988); Electa Arenal and Stacey Schlau, Untold Sisters: Hispanic Nuns in their Own Words, translated by Amanda Powell (1989); Margaret Sayers Peden, transl., Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Poems (1985) [BTR]; Asunción Lavrin, "Female Religious," in Cities and Societies in Colonial Latin America (1986), 186-188; Asunción Lavrin, "In Search of the Colonial Woman in Mexico: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives (1978); "Gender and Sexuality," Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (1996); Josephina Muriel, Cultura femenina novohispana (1982); Susan E. Ramírez, "Yo, la peor de todas," (film review) American Historical Review 97:4 (October 1992); Stephen Holden, "A Free-Spirited Nun's Poetry Sows Seeds of Her Undoing," (film review) New York Times 9/22/95, pC10.

Websites to Explore: A search of "sor juana" in Altavista found 2513 websites which you can browse for yourselves. You'll find that Chicago has an annual "Sor Juana Festival: A Tribute to Mexican Women," for example. The site for "El Closet de Sor Juana" (aka "Mexican Lesbian Website") <http://www.igc.org/beijing/ngo/closet.html> is directed by Patria Jiménez of Tijuana, who was elected to Mexico's Chamber of Deputies.

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Unit IV: "Adelita" Who is this Mexican revolutionary "everywoman" immortalized in photographs, song, theater, and recent scholarship? How have the "Adelitas"--also known as "Juanas," viejas (old ladies), galletas (cookies), cucarachas (cockroaches), soldadas, capitanas, coronelas, and, most commonly today, soldaderas--been codified in popular lore? Can we separate the history from the myth of their actual vs. perceived roles? Were they both reinforcing and challenging cultural constructions of woman's "place"? Why does Adelita intrigue us so much today? What does she represent for Chicanas? How does she compare to later twentieth-century revolutionary women in Latin America?

View: A clip from Corridos! Tales of Passion and Revolution (vignette on soldaderas by El Teatro Campesino); "Soldadera," a clip from Que viva México (Russia, 1931-32; based on murals of Siqueiros, Rivera, and Orozco; MEDIA SVC VT222); and possibly a clip from Like Water for Chocolate (MEDIA SVC VT3195). Also: Zapatista Women (30 min.) and a clip from Marcos: History and Myth.

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 7 (11/11): Andrés Reséndez Fuentes, "Battleground Women: Soldaderas and Female Soldiers in the Mexican Revolution," The Americas 51:4 (April 1995), 525-553 [ER]; "Transcription of the Script for Soldadera--Part IV of Que Viva Mexico!," [ER]; María Herrera-Sobek, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis (1990), 92-116 [BTR and 1 copy, PTR].

Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 8 (11/18): Elizabeth Salas, "Soldaderas: New Questions, New Sources," Women's Studies Quarterly 23:3/4 (1995), 112-116; three short chapters from Elaine Katzenberger, ed., First World, Ha ha ha! The Zapatista Challenge, 99-118 [BTR].

Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations and Final Papers: Sandra McGee Deutsch, "Gender and Sociopolitical Change in Twentieth-Century Latin America," Hispanic American Historical Review 71:2 (1991), 259-271; Shirlene Soto, Emergence of the Modern Mexican Woman: Her Participation in the Revolution and the Struggle for Equality, 1910-1940 (1990) [BTR]; Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History (1990) [BTR]; Elizabeth Salas, "Soldaderas in the Mexican Revolution: War and Men's Illusions," in Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990: Creating Spaces, Shaping Transitions, Heather Fowler-Salamini and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds. (1994), 93-105 [BTR]; Josephina Niggli, "Soldadera (Soldier-Woman)," in Mexican Folk Plays (1938) [BTR]; Ana Macias, "Women and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920, in Against All Odds: The Feminist Movement in Mexico to 1940, 25-57 [BTR]; Margaret Randall, Gathering Rage: The Failure of Twentieth Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda (1992); John Reed, Insurgent Mexico (look for descriptions of Elisabetta, soldadera) [BTR]; Rosario Castellanos, El eterno femenino: farsa (1975) (look for a re-creation of Adelita) [BTR].

Websites to Explore: The classic photo of the woman now associated with the ballad "Adelita" appears on the "La Adelita" website along with the lyrics in Spanish <http:// memorial.sdcs.k12.ca.us/LESSONS/20.de.Noviembre/La.Adelita.html>. See also the photos and discussion in Spanish of other soldaderas at <http://www.partida.com.mx/mexico1910/ mex5-10.htm> and <http://memorial.sdcs.k12.ca.us/LESSONS/20.de.Noviembre/ Soldaderas.html>. With further research, one can probably find other websites with relevant material.

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Unit V: Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) A cult-like following has also developed in recent years behind this intriguing figure from the Mexican revolutionary era. Why are women around the world embracing this painter and her work, inadvertently transforming her from a subversive into a commodity? To what extent are "othered groups" finding solace in Kahlo's own multi-dimensional "otherness" and pain (woman-artist, daughter of Catholic/cultural Jews, bisexual, handicapped, frustrated in motherhood, Communist, nonconformist swearing smoker, indigenista, feminist, etc.)? How has her life and/or art contributed to the evolution of mexicanidad as it is perceived inside and outside of Mexico? What does her work capture of the Revolution and the social and cultural changes it set in motion? One observer suggests she constructed an identity of "female mestizaje" by "unifying the stereotyped images of Mexican women." Would you agree? What do you make of her heavy reliance on self-portraiture? What insights does Kahlo's work give us into the way the female body is/was lived vs. made, at least in her cultural milieu? Did she challenge traditional imagery of the female body? If so, how and to what end? Does her work evoke pain? If so, is this significant for considerations of gender?

View: Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Artist (documentary; 62 min.); and possibly clips from Frida: naturaleza viva (1984 docu-drama; 108 min.; MEDIA SVC VT1011), Frida Kahlo: Portrait of a Woman (MEDIA SVC VT4139), and Guerrillas in Our Midst (MEDIA SVC VT1746).

Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 9 (11/25): Liza Bakewell, "Frida Kahlo: A Contemporary Feminist Reading," Frontiers 13:3 (Spring 1993), 165-189 [ER and EAI/ASAP]; Carlos Fuentes, "Introduction," in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait (1995), 7-24 [2 copies PTR]; selections from Frida Kahlo, The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas Apasionadas, Martha Zamora, comp. (1995) [BTR].

Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 10 (12/2): "Frida's Life of Pain" lyrics by El Vez [ER]; Nicole Cooley, "Self-Portrait: Frida Kahlo," (poem) The Nation 261:22 (December 25, 1995), 834 [ER]; Joanna Rawson, "Self-portraits By Frida Kahlo," (poem) The American Poetry Review 21:1 (Jan.-Feb. 1992), 31 [ER]; Carol E. Miller, "Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, Frida Kahlo, 1932," (poem) Frontiers 17:3 (1996), 101 [PTR]; Oriana Baddeley, "'Her Dress Hangs Here'" De-frocking the Kahlo Cult," Oxford Art Journal 14:1 (1991), 10-17 [PTR]; Suzi Gablik, "'We Spell It Like the Freedom Fighters'" A Conversation with the Guerrilla Girls," Art in America 82:1 (January 1994), 43-47 [ER].

Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations and Final Papers: Holly Barnet-Sánchez, "Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Art Revisited," Latin American Research Review 32:3 (1997), a very helpful review essay [2 copies, PTR]; Sarah M. Lowe and Carlos Fuentes, eds., The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait [BTR]; Judd Tully, "The Kahlo Cult," ARTnews 93:4 (1994), 126-134; Janis Bergman-Carton, "Strike a Pose: The Framing of Madonna and Frida Kahlo," Texas Studies in Literature and Language 35:4 (Winter 1993), 440-452 [ER]; Raquel Tibol, Frida Kahlo: An Open Life (1993) [BTR]; Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo (1991) [BTR]; David Lomas, "Body Languages: Kahlo and Medical Imagery," in Kathleen Adler and Marcia Pointon, eds., The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture Since the Renaissance (1993), 5-19 [PTR]; Mary Hull Webster, "The Kahlo Enigma: Pasión por Frida at The Mexican Museum," Artweek 23:22 (1992), 25; Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo: Pain and Passion (1992); J. Pontello, "Frida Fever," Southwest Art 21 (August 1991), 23; Martha Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish (1990) [BTR]; Janice Helland, "Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo's Paintings," Woman's Art Journal 11 (1990), 8-13 [PTR]; Joan Fimbel DiGiovanni and Ronald R. Lee, "The Art and Suffering of Frida Kahlo," in Creativity and Madness: Psychological Studies of Art and Artists (1995), 81-95; Janice Helland, "Culture, Politics, and Identity in the Paintings of Frida Kahlo," in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (1992); Jean Franco, "Body and Soul: Women and Postrevolutionary Messianism," 102-112 (plus notes), Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico; Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (1983) [two copies, BTR]; Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo (1992) [BTR]; Araceli Rico, Frida Kahlo: fantasia de un cuerpo herido (1988) [BTR]; Michael Newman, "The Ribbon around the Bomb," Art in America 71:4 (1983), 160-169; Nancy Breslow, "Frida Kahlo: A Cry of Joy and Pain," Americas 32:3 (1980), 33-39; Margarita Luna Robles, "What Frida Kahlo Thought of the Suicide of Dorothy Hale, 1939," (poem) [PTR]; Rauda Jamis, Frida Kahlo (1985) [BTR]; Elena Poniatowska and Carla Stellweg, Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced (1992) [BTR]; Frida Kahlo Unmasked: Portraits by Various Photographers [BTR]; Hayden Herrera, comp., Frida Kahlo: The Paintings (1993) [BTR]; Paula M. Cooey, Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis (1994), esp. 94-108; Elizabeth Bakewell, "Picturing the Self: Mexican Identity and Artistic Representation, Post-1968," Ph.D. Thesis, 1991, Brown University [BTR]; Mira Schor, "Girls Will Be Girls," Artforum 29:1 (September 1990), 124-129 [PTR]; Peter Glusker, "The Self-Portrait of Frida Kahlo (Letter to the Editor)," [EAI/ASAP].

Websites to Explore: A couple of examples: Frida Kahlo Home Page <http:// www.cascade.net/kahlo.html>; "Some Funky Frida Stuff" with magnets, buttons, bottle-cap jewelry, etc., for sale at the Casa Mexicana <http://www.dallas.net/~casamex2/ p0000310.html>; statements by the co-founder of Guerrilla Girls who calls herself "Frida Kahlo," <http://www.voyagerco.com/gg/daily5.html>; Guerrilla Girls, Home Page <http://www.guerrillagirls.com>.

FINAL ESSAYS DUE TUESDAY 12/8, by 5 PM, 272 PLC (push well under door; keep a backup)