The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso

This book is an exciting, well-organized overview of the evolution of a cultural icon: the nun-ensign Catalina de Erauso. . . . It will be of interest not only to Hispanists, but also to students of gender, theater, and film.-Anne J. Cruz, Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois, ChicagoCatalina de Erauso (1592-1650) was a Basque noblewoman who, just before taking final vows to become a nun, escaped from the convent at San Sebastián, dressed as a man, and, in her own words, went hither and thither, embarked, went into port, took to roving, slew, wounded, embezzled, and roamed about. Her long service fighting for the Spanish empire in Peru and Chile won her a soldier's pension and a papal dispensation to continue dressing in men's clothing. This theoretically informed study analyzes the many ways in which the Lieutenant Nun has been constructed, interpreted, marketed, and consumed by both the dominant and divergent cultures in Europe, Latin America, and the United States from the seventeenth century to the present. Sherry Velasco argues that the ways in which literary, theatrical, iconographic, and cinematic productions have transformed Erauso's life experience into a public spectacle show how transgender narratives expose and manipulate spectators' fears and desires. Her book thus reveals what happens when the private experience of a transgenderist is shifted to the public sphere and thereby marketed as a hybrid spectacle for the curious gaze of the general audience.

Author: Sherry Velasco
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 02/01/2001
Pages: 255
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9780292787469

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2001 pg. 316

About the Author
Sherry Velasco is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.