The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso"This book is an exciting, well-organized overview of the evolution of a cultural icon: the nun-ensign Catalina de Erauso. . . . It will be of interest not only to Hispanists, but also to students of gender, theater, and film." -Anne J. Cruz, Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois, Chicago Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650) was a Basque noblewoman who, just before taking final vows to become a nun, escaped from the convent at San Sebastián, dressed as a man, and, in her own words, "went hither and thither, embarked, went into port, took to roving, slew, wounded, embezzled, and roamed about." Her long service fighting for the Spanish empire in Peru and Chile won her a soldier's pension and a papal dispensation to continue dressing in men's clothing. This theoretically informed study analyzes the many ways in which the "Lieutenant Nun" has been constructed, interpreted, marketed, and consumed by both the dominant and divergent cultures in Europe, Latin America, and the United States from the seventeenth century to the present. Sherry Velasco argues that the ways in which literary, theatrical, iconographic, and cinematic productions have transformed Erauso's life experience into a public spectacle show how transgender narratives expose and manipulate spectators' fears and desires. Her book thus reveals what happens when the private experience of a transgenderist is shifted to the public sphere and thereby marketed as a hybrid spectacle for the curious gaze of the general audience. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 27
Page x
... icon tapped into the early modern fascination with hybrid monsters and the essentialist be- lief that masculine women were the product of a prenatal transmuta- tion . Likewise , the Lieutenant Nun's popularity during the seventeenth ...
... icon tapped into the early modern fascination with hybrid monsters and the essentialist be- lief that masculine women were the product of a prenatal transmuta- tion . Likewise , the Lieutenant Nun's popularity during the seventeenth ...
Page xi
... icon in Spanish literary journals , a zarzuela ( Spanish operetta ) , a Mexican play , and historical novels from Mexico and Spain . While Catalina de Erauso represented a hybrid spec- tacle that produced admiration , titillation , and ...
... icon in Spanish literary journals , a zarzuela ( Spanish operetta ) , a Mexican play , and historical novels from Mexico and Spain . While Catalina de Erauso represented a hybrid spec- tacle that produced admiration , titillation , and ...
Page xiii
... icon . I also wish to acknowledge my generous colleagues at the University of Kansas . Roberta Johnson , Lee Skinner , Jonathan Mayhew , Isidro Rivera , Danny Anderson , Tony Rosenthal , Luis Corteguera , and Marta Vicente offered per ...
... icon . I also wish to acknowledge my generous colleagues at the University of Kansas . Roberta Johnson , Lee Skinner , Jonathan Mayhew , Isidro Rivera , Danny Anderson , Tony Rosenthal , Luis Corteguera , and Marta Vicente offered per ...
Page 5
... , Mary Elizabeth Perry , Encarnación Juárez , and Adrienne L. Martín have analyzed Erauso's life in terms of the cultural significance of her icon . Erauso's autobiography has also been translated recently into English by Introduction 5.
... , Mary Elizabeth Perry , Encarnación Juárez , and Adrienne L. Martín have analyzed Erauso's life in terms of the cultural significance of her icon . Erauso's autobiography has also been translated recently into English by Introduction 5.
Page 8
... icon ) , I chose to use feminine pronouns to reflect the fact that the cultural icon of the Lieutenant Nun was defined first as a nun ( noun ) , who hap- pened to become ( and modified by ) a lieutenant ( adjective ) . Moreover , it ...
... icon ) , I chose to use feminine pronouns to reflect the fact that the cultural icon of the Lieutenant Nun was defined first as a nun ( noun ) , who hap- pened to become ( and modified by ) a lieutenant ( adjective ) . Moreover , it ...
Contents
Hybrid Spectacles Lesbian Desire Monsters Masculine Women in Early Modern Spain | 13 |
Celebrity and Scandal The Creation of the Lieutenant Nun in the Seventeenth Century | 45 |
Melodrama and the DeLesbianized Reconstruction of the Lieutenant Nun in the Nineteenth Century | 87 |
From Cinema to Comics The ReLesbianization of the Lieutenant Nun in the Twentieth Century | 113 |
Conclusion | 167 |
Appendix | 173 |
Notes | 177 |
217 | |
237 | |
Other editions - View all
The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso Sherry Velasco Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
actress Alonso amor Andrea años attraction audience Basque Beatriz bien Catalina de Erauso Coello's comic convent Cotarelo y Mori critics cross-dressed cultural described Despite diegetic Diego disguise Doña Catalina dressed early modern period episode Erauso's story erotic Esperanza Roy female feminine film garb gender role Gómez de Arteche Guzmán hecho heterosexual Historia historical hombre homoerotic homoeroticism homosexual hybrid icon identity Javier Aguirre Juan La Monja Alférez lesbian lesbian desire Lieutenant Lieutenant Nun Madrid male María Félix masculine Merrim Mexico Miguel military Monja Alférez monster monstrous Montalbán's play muger mujer narratives narrator nineteenth century novel nun's passion Pérez de Montalbán's popular portrait protagonist quoted readers relaciones reveal Rubio Merino same-sex desire scene señora sequential art seventeenth seventeenth-century Seville sexual Spain Spanish spectacle spectators Stepto Taibo Tellechea tion transgender transgressive transvestism transvestite University Press Vallbona version of Erauso's vida viewer virginity warrior woman women zarzuela
Popular passages
Page 4 - I was born in such and such a place, the daughter of this man and this woman, that at a certain age I was placed in a certain convent with a certain aunt, that I was raised there and took the veil and became a novice, and that when I was about to profess my final vows, I left the convent for such and such a reason, went to such and such a place, undressed myself and dressed myself up again, cut my hair, traveled here and there, embarked, disembarked, hustled, killed, maimed, wreaked havoc, and roamed...