Convent Wisdom
How Sixteenth-Century Nuns Could Save Your Twenty-First-Century Life
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- $ 57.900,00
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- $ 57.900,00
Descripción editorial
“Delightful.” —The Guardian • “Cheeky.” —The New York Times • “Insightful.” —Marie Claire • A not-so-saintly self-help book that dives into the wild, wise, and unconventional lives of 16th- and 17th-century nuns and proves one thing: no matter the century, nuns know best.
When most of us think of nuns, we picture hands clasped in prayer, solemn shuffles down cloistered halls, and that iconic habit silhouette. But what about the nuns who ate spiderwebs, erupted into jealous fights over makeup, or chain-produced manuscripts for extra cash? In reality, these women were no one-dimensional martyrs. 16th- and 17th-century nuns were resourceful, rebellious, and refreshingly relatable—and their lives hold surprising lessons for us today.
Convent Wisdom is your guide to navigating everything from patriarchal bureaucracy to an all-consuming friend crush with help from history’s most fascinating nuns. Struggling with money? Saint Teresa and her fellow Carmelites have recession-proof advice. Scrolling social media and drowning in FOMO? Mary of Jesus of Ágreda’s miraculous ability to engage in bilocation might help you cope. Confounded by a lesbian situationship? The yearnings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz contain unexpected insights.
Blending rigorous research with tongue-in-cheek takeaways and weaving pop culture and personal anecdotes throughout, Brown University scholars and best friends Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita spill the juicy inside scoop on monastic life so you can better conquer today’s anxiety-ridden, hyper-connected world. Be it work woes, unholy diets, or crises of the soul, the nuns of Convent Wisdom are here to guide you—with a wink and a prayer.
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In this cheeky pop history, Garriga and Urbita, Hispanic studies scholars and cohosts of the podcast Las hijas de Felipe, share modern life advice from an unexpected source: 16th- and 17th-century nuns in Spain and Latin America. "Anything you may be going through right now already happened to a nun" is the book's guiding motto, and each chapter explores a different life challenge like friendship, love, work, or body image. In the section on friendship, the high-profile falling-out of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton is compared to the sudden estrangement between Saint Teresa and her "BFF" Maria de San José. For dealing with work burnout, the authors find guidance in a 1691 letter from poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to her mother superior that embodies the "exquisite rhetorical juggling act you perform when you need to put your boss in their place." Modern diet culture and body image issues are compared to extreme fasting and ecstatic fitness regimes in convents ("Nothing tastes as good as holiness feels," the authors quip, tweaking the famous Kate Moss line). The book even points to how trends like Taylor Swift–inspired friendship bracelets have a precursor in the 16th-century demand for Saint Juana's blessed beads. With no shortage of such comical but also keenly observed comparisons between past and future, this charms.
