Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:48:25.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 21 - Knowledge in Transition: Rethinking the Science of Sameness in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s New Spain

from Part V - Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Rocío Quispe-Agnoli
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Amber Brian
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Get access

Summary

When Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648?-1695) famously described the natural secrets of cooking, she invoked some of the foundational terms of colonial science and society, from Aristotelian paradigms to Columbian acts of claiming. Scholars have long noted the importance of scientific knowledge to Sor Juana and underscore her engagement with Indigenous cultures, languages, and traditions. But few scholars have examined the intersection of Indigenous knowledge and scientific writing in Sor Juana’s ouvre. This chapter, grounded in a reading of classical natural philosophy, as it was expressed in Sor Juana’s Respuesta (1695), represents an effort to bring these research areas into dialogue. By juxtaposing Mayan-language documents from colonial Yucatán with Sor Juana’s masterful defense of knowledge in central New Spain, this chapter analyzes how Indigenous ways of knowing may have shaped one of the most important treatises on knowledge in colonial Mexico, thus suggesting. ways in which colonial letters both mark and help to promote critical transitions in the meaning of knowledge, epistemological categories, and the nature of knowledge production itself.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abbott, Mark B., and Wolfe, Alexander P.. “Intensive Pre-Incan Metallurgy Recorded by Lake Sediments from the Bolivian Andes.” Science 301.5641 (2003): 18931895.Google Scholar
Arenal, Electa and Powell, Amanda. Introduction. The Answer/La Respuesta. 2nd ed. New York: Feminist Press at CUNY, 2009. 137.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . The Works of Aristotle. Physica, De Caelo, De Generatione et Corruptione. Ed. Ross, W. D.. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930.Google Scholar
Alcalá y Hamurrio, Juan de. Directorio del Beneficio del Azogue en los metales de Plata. Lima [Potosí?]. Albuquerque: Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, 1737 [1691?].Google Scholar
Barba, Álvaro Alonso. Arte de los Metales. Madrid: Imprenta del Reyno, 1640. Making of the Modern World. Web. www.gale.com/primary-sources/the-making-of-the-modern-world.Google Scholar
Bargalló, Modesto. La minería y la metalurgia en la América Española durante la época colonial. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1955.Google Scholar
Berrio de Montalvo, Luis. Al exmo. señor don Garcia Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Luna. México: Imprenta del Secreto del Santo Oficio por Francisco Robledo, 1643.Google Scholar
Bigelow, Allison Margaret. Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biringuccio, Vannoccio. De la Pirotechnia. Venezia: Venturino Rossinello ad instantia di Curtio Nauo, 1540. Making of the Modern World. www.gale.com/primary-sources/the-making-of-the-modern-world.Google Scholar
Blair, Ann. “Natural Philosophy.” Park, Katharine and Daston, Lorraine, eds. Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 365405.Google Scholar
Blith, Walter. The English Improver, or a New Survey of Husbandry. London: J. Wright, 1649. Web. Early English Books Online (EEBO). eebo.chadwyck.com.Google Scholar
Cárdenas, Juan de. Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias. 1591. Valladolid: Maxtor, 2003.Google Scholar
“Carta de varios caciques de Maya en Yucatán,” enero 1540, 4 folios. Audiencia de México, 104.8 Archivo General de Indias.Google Scholar
Cook, Harold J. “Medicine.” Park, Katharine and Daston, Lorraine, eds. Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 407434.Google Scholar
Cruz, Pablo and Téreygeol, Florian. “Los hornos de reverbero andinos. Dinámicas de transferencias e innovaciones de tecnologías metalúrgicas indígenas y europeas.” Estudios Atacameños 66 (2020): 105128.Google Scholar
Díaz, Mónica. “Seventeenth-Century Dialogues: Transatlantic Readings of Sor Juana.” The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz. Ed. Bergmann, Emilie L. and Schlau, Stacey. New York: Routledge, 2017. 3339.Google Scholar
Ercker, Lazarus. Beschreibung: Aller Fürnemisten Mineralischen Ertzt Unnd Berckwercks. Prague: G. Schwartz, 1574. Making of the Modern World. www.gale.com/primary-sources/the-making-of-the-modern-world.Google Scholar
Fernández del Castillo, Francisco. “La medicina de Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora y de Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz.” Gaceta Médica de México 100.2 (1970): 98109.Google Scholar
Grant, Edward. A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Guerrero, Saul. Silver by Fire, Silver by Mercury: A Chemical History of Silver Refining in New Spain and Mexico, 16th to 19th Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 2017.Google Scholar
Hernández, Francisco. Quatro libros. De la naturaleza, y virtudes de las plantas,y animales que estan receuidos en el vso de medicina en la Nueua España. México: Viuda de Diego López Dávalos, 1615.Google Scholar
Johnson, David A. and Whittle, Karl. “The Chemistry of the Hispanic-American Amalgamation Process.” Journal of the Chemical Society, Dalton Transactions 23 (1999): 42394243.Google Scholar
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor. Obras completas de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Ed. Alatorre, Antonio, Plancarte, Alfonso Méndez, and Salceda, Alberto G.. 4 vols. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2012.Google Scholar
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor The Answer/La Respuesta. 2nd ed. Trans. and ed. Arenal, Electa and Powell, Amanda. New York: Feminist Press at CUNY, 2009.Google Scholar
Kirk, Stephanie. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Gender Politics of Knowledge in Colonial Mexico. New York: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Klein, Ursula and Spary, E. C., eds. Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe. Between Market and Laboratory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lipski, John M. A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries, Five Continents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. E. R.The Hot and the Cold, the Dry and the Wet in Greek Philosophy.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 84 (1964): 92106.Google Scholar
Luiselli, Alessandra. “Primero Sueño: Heresy and Knowledge.” The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, eds. Bergmann, Emilie L. and Stacey, Schlau. New York: Routledge, 2017. 176188.Google Scholar
Merrim, Stephanie, ed. Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Minshew, John. ΗΓΕΜΩΝ ΤΑΣ ΓΛΩΣΣΑΣ, Id Est, Ductor in Linguas, the Guide into Tongues. London: William Stansby and Melchisidec Bradwood, 1617. Nuevo Tesoro Lexicográfico de la Lengua Española. ntlle.rae.es/ntlle/SrvltGUILoginNtlle.Google Scholar
Molina, Alonso de. Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana. 1555. Mexico City: Porrúa, 1970.Google Scholar
Monardes, Nicolás. Primera y segvnda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales que sirven en medicina. Sevilla: Alonso Escribano, 1574.Google Scholar
Norton, Marcy. “Subaltern Technologies and Early Modernity in the Atlantic World.” Colonial Latin American Review 26.1 (2017): 1838.Google Scholar
Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz o Las Trampas de La Fe. 3rd ed. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004.Google Scholar
Plattes, Gabriel. A Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure. London: J. Okes for Jasper Emery, 1639. Early English Books Online. proquest.libguides.com/eebopqp/content.Google Scholar
Poot Herrera, Sara, ed. Sor Juana y su mundo: una mirada actual. México: Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, 1995.Google Scholar
Powell, Lisa D.Sor Juana’s Critique of Theological Arrogance.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 27.2 (2011): 1130.Google Scholar
Sabat de Rivers, Georgina. “Unamuno, Sor Juana y la ciencia.” Salina: Revista de Lletres 19 (2005): 8390.Google Scholar
Sainz Bariáin, Isabel. “El ‘tocotín’ en los fastos novohispanos: una muestra de sincretismo cultural.” Revista de Filología Hispánica 32.3 (2016): 737757.Google Scholar
Sancho Dobles, Leonardo. “El contexto científico del siglo XVII en los poemas de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.” Sor Juana Polímata. Ed. Long, Pamela H. México: Grupo Destiempos, 2013. 1025.Google Scholar
Stevens, John. A New Spanish and English Dictionary. London: George Sawbridge, 1706.Google Scholar
Tabuenca, María Socorro. “Lo precolombino: notas sobre el diálogo disfrazado en Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz.” Letras Femeninas. Número extraordinario. (1994): 3138.Google Scholar
Thomas, George Anthony. The Politics and Poetics of Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz. New York: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Trabulse, Elías. Arte y ciencia en la historia de México. México: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1994.Google Scholar
Velasco Murillo, Dana. Urban Indians in a Silver City: Zacatecas, Mexico, 1546–1810. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Wey Gómez, Nicolás. The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Wirtz, Kristina. Performing Afro-Cuba: Image, Voice, Spectacle in the Making of Race and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Wright, M. R. Empedocles, the Extant Fragments. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×