The Mystic of Tunja
Subtitle: the writings of Madre Castillo, 1671-1742
By: Kathryn Joy McKnight.
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Amherst
Language: eng
Number of pages: 284
Subjects: Castillo, Francisca Josefa de la Concepción de, 1671-1742 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Nuns' writings, Colombian -- History and criticism.
Description: During the fifty-three years she lived in a convent in the city of Tunja in what is now Colombia, author Madre Castillo stretched the accepted boundaries of female behavior by veiling her intellectual activities in the duties of a colonial nun. Her autobiographical writings reveal a deeply conflicted individual whose keen mind chafed against the restrictions of Counter-Reformation ideology. In this volume, Kathryn Joy McKnight offers an insightful analysis of Madre Castillo's life and writings.

McKnight draws on feminist and post-structural criticism, recent scholarship on nuns' writings, and extensive research in colonial archives to develop a framework for understanding Madre Castillo's life and the genre of the spiritual autobiography, so often required of mystic nuns by their confessors.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-268) and index.