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In this study on the musical lives of nuns in colonial Latin America, author Cesar D. Favila argues that the sounds of cloisters were deemed essential for the promotion of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and, by extension, the salvation of early modern society. Through analysis of these "immaculate sounds," rarely studied archival sources, rulebooks, devotional literature, and nun's biographies, Favila locates women's agency within a hierarchical society that silenced some women and required others to sing.
List of contents
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Preface, or an Autohistoria-Teoría
- List of Figures
- List of Examples
- List of Tables
- List of Appendices
- Note on Sources
- Introduction: Veil and Voice
- Part I. Acousmatic Discipline
- 1. Immaculate Conflicts: Resounding Mary's Immaculate Conception, or Who Was Sister Flor de Santa Clara?
- 2. Sonic Thresholds: The Grates of the Cloister and the Lips of Nuns, or Who Was Sister Rosa?
- 3. Disciplined Sounds: Dowry Waivers and Race, or Who Was Sister Mariana Josefa de Señor San Ignacio?
- Part II. Unity
- 4. Feasting Sounds: The Eucharistic Honeymoon, or Who Was Sister Paula?
- 5. Redeeming Sounds: Resounding the Passion of Christ and His Spiritual Brides, or Who Was Sister Marina de San Francisco?
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Appendices
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Cesar D. Favila is Assistant Professor of Musicology at UCLA. His work focuses on Mexican music, ranging from colonial New Spain to the contemporary Chicano experience, and often residing at the intersections of music, religion, gender, and race. Favila's work has been funded by numerous grants and fellowships, including support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, and the Fulbright Program, among others.
Summary
In Catholic doctrine, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is the belief that Mary, the mother of Christ, was exempt from original sin from the moment of her conception, and thereby a co-redeemer alongside her son. Praise for this complicated devotion took place in Europe throughout the medieval period and resounded in the Americas with the founding of the first convent in Mexico City under the Order of the Immaculate Conception in 1540. All other orders of nuns in New Spain branched out from this convent, spreading the Marian devotion throughout the region.
In this book, author Cesar D. Favila argues that the sonification of virginity and the Virgin Mary was fundamental to the promotion of the Immaculate Conception doctrine, and that this was part of a complex network of sonified practices in the lives of New Spanish nuns. These "immaculate sounds," a term Favila uses for the cloistered nuns' idealized vocalizations as well as the expression of doctrinal rhetoric through musical metaphors, echoed the highly regulated realm of the convent and played a pivotal role in mediating between the lives of New Spanish nuns and the expectation that they would save the secular world with their vocalized prayers. In addition to the sonification of discipline, Favila shows that immaculate sounds also enhanced the nuns' engagement with their religious practices and facilitated embodied and spiritual engagement with Catholic doctrines.
Throughout his study, he delves into rarely studied music sources from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New Spain alongside the rulebooks, devotional literature, and nuns' biographies that regulated convent life and inspired nuns' hymns. In doing so, Favila brings together a narrative of salvation that shines a light on the musical lives of nuns and locates women's agency within a hierarchical society that silenced some women and required others to sing.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Additional text
Blending cultural history, musical theory, and archival research, this work will definitely change the interpretation of the musical heritage of women's convents in colonial Mexico.
