South American Independence Gender, Politics, Text

The struggles for independence in Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century were accompanied by a wide-ranging debate about political rights, nationality and citizenship. In South American Independence, Catherine Davies, Claire Brewster and Hilary Owen investigate the neglected role of gender in that discussion. Examining women writers from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia, the book traces the contradictions inherent in revolutionary movements that, while arguing for the rights of all, remained ambivalent, at best, about the place of women. Through studies of both published and unpublished writings, South American Independence reveals the complex role of women in shaping the vexed ideologies of independence.

Catherine Davies is a Professor of Hispanic and Latin American Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is the author of A Place in the Sun? Women Writers in Twentieth Century Cuba (Zed, 1997) and co-editor of Latin American Women's Writing: Feminist Readings in Theory and Crisis (OUP, 1996). Claire Brewster is a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. She is author of Responding to Crisis in Contemporary Mexico (University of Arizona Press, 2005). Hilary Owen is Senior Lecturer in Portuguese at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Portuguese Women's Writing, 1972-1986 (Edwin Mellen Press, 2000)