I really enjoyed the readings this week, in particular I found Catalina de Erauso’s diary particularly engaging and surprising with it reading like a soap opera at times!
What struck me most about Catalina’s story was that she received no punishment when her identity was revealed but instead was honoured by both the Pope and the King. I found this so surprising as even in Europe today queer people are not always accepted by the Catholic Church – in Italy gay marriage is not legal due to the Catholic Church’s controversial influence over the country’s politics. The fact that she was so readily accepted would perhaps suggest that the Church and the King were not aware of her sexuality but only saw her as a woman who had dressed as a man for the sole purpose of serving her country and not as a way of expressing her own gender identity.
Furthermore, I was surprised that the highest powers at the time, the State and the Church, both recognised that a woman was capable of doing a “man’s” job to a high level. I had believed that the wide spread notion of women being capable of “men’s” work only came into fruition during World War One when women were forced to step into these types of jobs so it was interesting to see how in the patriarchal society of the time Catalina wasn’t criticised for her actions but praised for them.
The Casta Paintings also intrigued me as I would have presumed they would have written down this social hierarchy as a numbered list and not in the form of a painting. However, I can see how a painting may be more effective in portraying the nuances of this hierarchy with each category being dressed in different clothes and with a different background. In one notable example those with “purer” blood were depicted as closer to God.
I also noticed that some of the paintings differed on a “definition” for each of the groups with some paintings showing very different images for the same group. This would perhaps suggest that this was not a ‘clear-cut’ matter and that the lines between groups were very blurred, especially given that many people at the time managed to pass as another group.
Discussion questions
Can you think of any historical figures like Catalina that defied the gender norms of the time?
Do governments use a figurative Casta Painting to categorize citizens into a hierarchy today?
I really enjoyed the readings this week, in particular I found Catalina de Erauso’s diary particularly engaging and surprising with it reading like a soap opera at times!
What struck me most about Catalina’s story was that she received no punishment when her identity was revealed but instead was honoured by both the Pope and the King. I found this so surprising as even in Europe today queer people are not always accepted by the Catholic Church – in Italy gay marriage is not legal due to the Catholic Church’s controversial influence over the country’s politics. The fact that she was so readily accepted would perhaps suggest that the Church and the King were not aware of her sexuality but only saw her as a woman who had dressed as a man for the sole purpose of serving her country and not as a way of expressing her own gender identity.
Furthermore, I was surprised that the highest powers at the time, the State and the Church, both recognised that a woman was capable of doing a “man’s” job to a high level. I had believed that the wide spread notion of women being capable of “men’s” work only came into fruition during World War One when women were forced to step into these types of jobs so it was interesting to see how in the patriarchal society of the time Catalina wasn’t criticised for her actions but praised for them.
The Casta Paintings also intrigued me as I would have presumed they would have written down this social hierarchy as a numbered list and not in the form of a painting. However, I can see how a painting may be more effective in portraying the nuances of this hierarchy with each category being dressed in different clothes and with a different background. In one notable example those with “purer” blood were depicted as closer to God.
I also noticed that some of the paintings differed on a “definition” for each of the groups with some paintings showing very different images for the same group. This would perhaps suggest that this was not a ‘clear-cut’ matter and that the lines between groups were very blurred, especially given that many people at the time managed to pass as another group.
Discussion questions
Can you think of any historical figures like Catalina that defied the gender norms of the time?
Do governments use a figurative Casta Painting to categorize citizens into a hierarchy today?
I really enjoyed the readings this week, in particular I found Catalina de Erauso’s diary particularly engaging and surprising with it reading like a soap opera at times!
What struck me most about Catalina’s story was that she received no punishment when her identity was revealed but instead was honoured by both the Pope and the King. I found this so surprising as even in Europe today queer people are not always accepted by the Catholic Church – in Italy gay marriage is not legal due to the Catholic Church’s controversial influence over the country’s politics. The fact that she was so readily accepted would perhaps suggest that the Church and the King were not aware of her sexuality but only saw her as a woman who had dressed as a man for the sole purpose of serving her country and not as a way of expressing her own gender identity.
Furthermore, I was surprised that the highest powers at the time, the State and the Church, both recognised that a woman was capable of doing a “man’s” job to a high level. I had believed that the wide spread notion of women being capable of “men’s” work only came into fruition during World War One when women were forced to step into these types of jobs so it was interesting to see how in the patriarchal society of the time Catalina wasn’t criticised for her actions but praised for them.
The Casta Paintings also intrigued me as I would have presumed they would have written down this social hierarchy as a numbered list and not in the form of a painting. However, I can see how a painting may be more effective in portraying the nuances of this hierarchy with each category being dressed in different clothes and with a different background. In one notable example those with “purer” blood were depicted as closer to God.
I also noticed that some of the paintings differed on a “definition” for each of the groups with some paintings showing very different images for the same group. This would perhaps suggest that this was not a ‘clear-cut’ matter and that the lines between groups were very blurred, especially given that many people at the time managed to pass as another group.
Discussion questions
Can you think of any historical figures like Catalina that defied the gender norms of the time?
Do governments use a figurative Casta Painting to categorize citizens into a hierarchy today?
This week I had lots to think about. There were 3 distinct topics that had me pondering many questions. The first was in regards to the population of Latin America. This was within the lecture video and really struck me. I guess I had always assumed that Latin America’s population was a little bit ofContinue reading “Week 3: The Colonial Experience”
I very much enjoyed all the material presented to us in week three. I started by listening to Alec Dawson’s podcast about colonial heritage and was struck by a couple of his premises, especially the idea of “us” and “them”, as it seems to be a reoccurring theme in my classes this week. The colonizer, […]
There are few memoirs that read as if they were a work of fiction. Catalina de Erauso’s is one of them. After escaping the dominican convent where she was a nun, Erauso, fled the Basque country, traveled Spanish territories, and ended up in the New World. Erauso then returned to Spain, where she was […]
The two articles of this week, Lieutenant Nun and Casta Paintings, give two narratives that provide insight into the imaginaries that people had and created during the colonial period. In Lieutenant Nun, we have a first-hand account of the common … Continue reading →
ON CASTA PAINTINGS To me the most interesting thing about casta paintings is the variety of perspectives and responses of the viewers. As the text suggests, casta paintings were intended to convey a positive and prosperous image of racial mixture, so as to make a difference in a period when the creoles were discriminated against […]
