Eve's Enlightenment: Women's Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839

Eves Enlightenment presents essays by leading scholars in the fields of history, art history, literature, and psychology discussing how Enlightenment philosophies compared to womens actual experiences in Spain and Spanish America. Relying on newspaper accounts, poetry, polemic, paintings, and saints lives, this diverse group of contributors consider how evolving legal, social, and medical norms affected women, and how art and literature portrayed them. They also examine how these Hispanic womens experiences contributed to a trans-Atlantic understanding of the Enlightenment. While Enlightenment reformers demanded rational equality for men and women, society increasingly emphasized sentiment and passion as defining characteristics of the female sex, creating a serious incongruity between these competing forces. Despite clear gaps between Enlightenment ideals and womens experiences, however, the contributors agree that the women of Spain and Spanish America not only took part in the social and cultural transformations of the time, but also exerted their own power and influence to help guide the Spanish-speaking world towards modernity. An introduction by the editors provides helpful historical and contextual information. Eves Enlightenment presents the first interdisciplinary collection published in English in its field, offering a wealth of information for scholars of eighteenth-century Spanish history, literature, art history, and womens studies.