Tuesday, May 11, 4-6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

In the late 18th century, María Anastasia Gonzales, a woman of Spanish descent who grew up in small, rural, primarily indigenous farming villages, fell afoul of the Mexican Inquisition while she was living as a widowed mother in the Spanish town of Sayula. She was a mystic whose former confessor had sexually exploited her as a part of their sacramental relationship. But when called to testify against him, she made heretical claims and experienced visions in front of her examiners. Throughout the thirteen-year investigation, trial, and punishment that followed, Inquisitors and local clergymen debated the cause and significance of her crimes, but Gonzales never wavered from her own perspective of events. “The Beata of the Black Habit” explores the politics of religious knowledge and changing ideas about race and sexuality in the final decades of Spanish colonial rule through the lens of one woman’s story and her attempts to make theological sense of sexual and sacramental violence.

The Zoom link to join this event is available upon request. Please contact Nick Spitulski at <spitulski.1@osu.edu>.

Hosted by OSU Center for the Study of Religion.