AUTHORITY AND SELF-FIGURATION THROUGH AFFECTIVE RHETORIC IN ÚRSULA SUÁREZ AND MOTHER JOSEFA DEL CASTILLO

Abstract

Úrsula Suárez (1666-1749) and Madre Josefa del Castillo (1671-1742) wrote, at the behest of their confessors, an account of their lives where emotions and an affective rhetoric are interwoven. Although these noun-authors followed a writing model, in the present article it will be shown how the affective order, far from reflecting their inwardness, enables various possibilities: from questioning the doxa that associated women with passion and passiveness to slipping out of the space that was allotted to them by the patriarchal culture, thereby, gaining the authority to speak. Therefore, the focus on an affective rhetoric, as well as affect used to narrate spirituality, will be read in such a way that will give not only an account of their singularity as authors, but also of the political and social technologies that determine them.