Introduction: Seminar on Women and Culture in Latin America

The history of women’s participation in literary culture and political life in Latin America is a history still in the making. The partial and often biased record of women’s thought and activity in that cultural region has limited our historical perspectives and our understanding of feminist contributions. For example, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz has been seen as a unique phenomenon, an iconographic feminist presence, rather than as one of many women involved in a long tradition of engagement in Latin American culture. As recent investigations in women’s history show, the activities and achievements of women have not been