Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America (review)
Stephanie Kirk has a strong case here as to the animosity of the Church towards convents, but an over-reliance on critical theory narrows her scope considerably. With each chapter she provides the reader with a fixed theoretical lens through which to consider the subject, thus bringing to light neglected aspects of the literature she studies, but she fails to paint that broad canvas of varying hues and forms that constituted life in Mexican convents. Official Church rhetoric and documented cases of strife may easily lead us away from the fact that on the local level many nuns achieved fame for their charismatic powers, revered by clergy and laity alike and, that wrapped around these "coerced communities" were complicated networks of support that welcomed whatever sacred missives they might communicate from the divine sphere.