At 11:00 we will gather in the meeting room of the River Road/Dusenberry Public Library, where Dr. Rivero will paint a picture of life for Mexican women between the 16th and the 19th centuries, highlighting the importance of religious institutions and social classes in the Viceroyalty of New Spain.  (The territories of New Spain comprised Mexico, Central America, much of United States west of the Mississippi, the Spanish Caribbean, Florida and the Philippines between 1535 and 1821.)  Convents were significant in urban environments, as were churches, and in spite of religious vows of poverty, nunneries were often repositories of wealth as well as the only educational sites for girls in the colonial world. Many female relatives of early Spanish settlers were forced to look at convents as desirable places for shelter from a world in which they could not compete successfully.  Dr. Rivero will share literary works from nuns in Colonial Mexico, as well as photos of convents, cloisters, churches, and plazas.  These include a view of the original convent where Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz lived, now the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico D.F. 

Eliana Suárez Rivero was born in Cuba and immigrated permanently to the U.S. in 1961. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Hispanic Language and Literatures and a B.A. in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Miami. She has done scholarly work and teaching in the area of Latin American literatures, especially poetry and women’s writings, for almost five decades.  She has authored or coedited six scholarly books, and has published over 100 articles, chapters in books, review essays, notes, bibliographies, and collection entries, on topics ranging from Caribbean authors to Mexican colonial nuns.  The National Office of Phi Beta Kappa chose Dr. Rivero for its 2000-01 Visiting Scholar Program.

At 12:30, we will meet next door at Caffe Torino in the Foothills.  Please RSVP to Diane Paine at 219-5440 or dmpaine@earthlink.net by late Friday, October 21.  If you cannot attend the lecture, you are certainly welcome at the lunch, and vice versa.