Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America

European Women Pilgrims

Adriana Méndez Rodenas

• Publisher: Bucknell University Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781611485080
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: Literature

Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims retraces the steps of five intrepid "lady travelers" who ventured into the geography of the New World—Mexico, the Southern Cone, Brazil, and the Caribbean—at a crucial historical juncture, the period of political anarchy following the break from Spain and the rise of modernity at the turn of the twentieth century. Traveling as historians, social critics, ethnographers, and artists, Frances Erskine Inglis (1806–82), Maria Graham (1785–1842), Flora Tristan (1803–44), Fredrika Bremer (1801–65), and Adela Breton (1849–1923) reshaped the map of nineteenth-century Latin America. Organized by themes rather than by individual authors, this book examines European women's travels as a spectrum of narrative discourses, ranging from natural history, history, and ethnography. Women's social condition becomes a focal point of their travels. By combining diverse genres and perspectives, women's travel writing ushers a new vision of post-independence societies. The trope of pilgrimage conditions the female travel experience, which suggests both the meta-end of the journey as well as the broader cultural frame shaping their individual itineraries.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims
• Chapter 2: Mapping the Unknown: European Women’s Travels and the Gaze of Enchantment
• Chapter 3: Romancing the Nation: European Women’s Travels in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America
• Chapter 4: Face-to-Face with the Other: Women Travelers as Ethnographers
• Coda: At Home in the Heights
• Bibliography
• About the Author