RELS 216 Nuns/Witches/She-Devils: Gend & Rel in Latin Amer

Catholicism was a cornerstone ideology behind the colonization of the Americas. Its tenets and teachings have structured all aspects of Latin American society, including gender relations. This course will explore the gendered aspects of religious experience throughout Latin American history. It will begin with the Conquest of the Americas and lead up to the present day. In the colonial period, we will explore topics such as nuns, the Inquisition, sexuality and religion, and witchcraft. Students will be asked to consider how varying religious identities--nuns, sodomites, witches--could simultaneously oppress and carve out space for men and women across colonial Latin America. In modern Latin America, we will look at the role religion and gender played in the consolidation of post-colonial states, sexuality and reproduction, and the gendered rise of evangelicalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will pay close attention to how religious authorities used gender ideologies to reshape their societal roles in the modern period. The course readings will include both primary, historical materials, as well as and secondary scholarship.