Comunidades de sentimiento: Cartografías afectivas de las redes sororales del siglo XIX

This article engages key concepts in affect theory to study correspondence exchanged within and referring to networks of women writers in nineteenth-century Lima (Matto de Turner, Cabello de Carbonera, and Gorriti). Drawing on interventions by Sarah Ahmed, Deleuze and Guattari, and Barbara Rosenwein, I study the role of emotion in creating and sustaining a close intellectual community by tracing the circulation of affect in both public and private expressions of sisterhood. In particular, I highlight negative affects—envy, professional jealousy—within sororal networks, and the writers' need to control those emotions in public to exhibit solidarity to the outside world. While in the literary salon, women writers presented themselves as a cohesive sisterhood, in their secret correspondences with powerful male mentors (Figueroa, Palma), they expressed negative emotions such as envy and professional jealousy more freely. I argue that a close examination of these sororophobic episodes reveals the performative aspects of public sisterhood as well as the continued need at this time for women writers to secure their position at the periphery of male-centered networks.