Colonial Angels: Narratives of Gender and Spirituality in Mexico, 1580–1750 by Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela (review)

116 Reviews D (79-93), and Jeremy Robbins’ “Scepticism and Stoicism in Spain: Antonio López de Vega’s Heráclito y Demócrito de nuestro siglo” (13751 ) all engage in close “readings” informed by, and challenging to, our preconceptions about Spanish intellectual history, especially as it relates to the broader sphere of European intellectual movements during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is, not so coincidentally, the main strength of Ronald Truman’s Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the Time of Philip II (Leiden: Brill, 1999). The studies in Culture and Society in Habsburg Spain are erudite, but jargon-free. In the best tradition of Anglo Hispanism the most complex issues are expressed with refreshing clarity. An onomastic index and complete bibliography will also help scholars find their way through the diversity of topics covered in this volume. One might have wished for more thematic unity in the collection, which would have facilitated a more precise title, yet taken individually, each of the studies shares a common eagerness to illuminate some corner of the Golden Age with the scholarly rigor characteristic of Truman himself. Alexander J. McNair The University of Wisconsin-Parkside Sampson Vera Tudela, Elisa. Colonial Angels: Narratives of Gender and Spirituality in Mexico, 1580-1750. Austin: U of Texas P, 2000. xv + 202 pp. HB.PB. ISBN 0-292-77748-5. Colonial Angels is a constructive contribution to the field of colonial studies. Drawing on some materials never before studied, the author Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela endeavors to understand and analyze cultural exchanges between colonizers and colonized in the New World from an interdisciplinary perspective. She is especially interested in the role(s) of gender in the construction of the Spanish empire, and takes as a case study the institution of the colonial convent. Through the study of conventual relations among nuns and between nuns and priests, Sampson Vera Tudela traces the exchanges between center and periphery. The study uses a variety of archival sources and hagiographic writings, some written by nuns and others by priests. Three chapters are devoted to Carmelites, one chapter to a Franciscan nun, and the final one to the convent of Corpus Christi for Indian nobles in Mexico City. In the first chapter, Sampson Vera Tudela considers the relationship between travel narratives and hagiographies in the New World, and the ways in which these genres were adapted from Spain and put to use in Mexico. The nuns who traveled to the New World had to Reseñas D 117 construct their narratives carefully since their travel narratives challenged the ideal of enclosure. In their writings, the nuns described their travel experiences as spiritual journeys. Although the conventual chronicles and hagiographies were intended to portray the convent and their inhabitants as being as orthodox as their Spanish counterparts, these texts were products of the colonial experience and differed significantly from the Spanish models. This chapter provides a good opening to the book by illustrating the adaptation of Spanish cultural forms to a new reality, and makes an innovative contribution in its attention to the connections between travel narratives and hagiographies, yet it does not provide an adequate definition of these genres. The second chapter analyzes several versions of the chronicles about the foundation of the San José convent, including Parayso Occidental written by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, in which he made use of the writings by the nuns from the convent. The nuns from Jesús María, who considered their convent in need of reform and founded San José, adapted the narrative model of Teresa of Avila and transformed it into a New World version. The other sisters in the convent of Jesús María harshly criticized the nuns for wanting reform and a change to the Carmelite rule. The conflict reveals a marked difference in the convent between the nuns that arrived from Spain, who were opposed to reform, and their sisters of Spanish descent born in the New World, and is indicative of a social division that became a source of conflict in different sectors of the colonies. In the third chapter, the author studies another form of the hagiographic genre produced through...