About This Project
Mapping Latin American Intellectual Women is a project woven through time as part of the final product of my doctoral dissertation. Early in my undergraduate career, I became interested in literature written by women and historical artifacts such as newspapers and manuscripts. Colombian culture became the gateway to a universe of complex intellectual networks created by women writers who not only tied their ideas to the dominant historical narrative but challenged it through their participation in the cultural field.
This project is an encounter between multiple worlds. At its center is the concept of the network (which is also the central concept of my dissertation). Mapping Latin American Intellectual Women seeks to bring together in this space not only the product of my research—which focuses on analyzing women’s intellectual networks created in the press—but also the various digital spaces that have been created to disseminate their work and make it more visible to contemporary audiences.
Scope and Parameters
Mapping Latin American Intellectual Women is divided into two major components.
First, the project features network visualizations created using Gephi based on data collected from eight Brazilian and Colombian newspapers published between 1870 and 1930. These networks analyze the communities created by different newspapers across various periods, identifying which authors appeared most frequently and where, which textual genres predominated within these publications, and which themes were most prevalent.
Second, the project includes a broader section designed to showcase my research at a larger scale. In the “Women Writers” section, I include newspapers that were published by women during the 1870-1930 period without distinction of purpose (whether they were published for women, with literary aims, etc.), as well as newspapers that were specifically published for women readers.
The project focuses primarily on Brazilian and Colombian periodical culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining women as writers, editors, publishers, and intellectual network builders across literary, journalistic, and cultural genres.
Methodology
This project employs digital humanities methodologies, particularly network analysis, to examine women’s intellectual production and collaboration in Latin American periodical culture. Using Gephi for network visualization, I collected and analyzed data from eight newspapers to map the relationships between authors, publications, genres, and themes.
The theoretical framework draws on intellectual history, feminist scholarship, and digital humanities approaches to networks. This methodology allows us to visualize patterns of collaboration, influence, and community-building that traditional literary analysis might overlook, revealing the complex ecosystems of women’s intellectual work in this period.
Project Goals
I hope users will find two things in this space: first, a new way of analyzing the press through network analysis—a methodology not yet widely used in Latin American academia but highly complementary to intellectual history—and second, a space to discover and explore the rich intellectual networks created by Latin American women writers.
This project enables researchers to explore questions such as: How did women writers create transnational intellectual communities? Which themes and genres dominated women’s periodical production? How did these networks evolve across different geographic and temporal contexts? What connections existed between Brazilian and Colombian women intellectuals?
Team and Credits
Although I have been the principal investigator of this project, it has been collaborative from the beginning—from the classes I took as an undergraduate through the completion of my dissertation. Several professors, colleagues, and institutions have made this project possible.
Faculty Advisors:
- Dr. Lauren Klein – Principal Advisor (PhD) – Emory University
- Dr. Leonardo Velloso-Lyons – PhD Advisor – Emory University
- Dr. Francisco Ortega – Universidad Nacional de Colombia
- Iván Padilla Chasing – Universidad Nacional de Colombia, MA Dissertation Advisor
- Dr. Carolina Alzate – Universidad de los Andes, Director of the Biblioteca Digital Soledad Acosta de Samper
Collaborators:
- Javier Ricardo Ardila – Doctoral student, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania. We have collaborated on multiple projects, including my most recent publication, Voces de mujeres.
- Guillermo Castillo – Doctoral student, Department of Latin American Studies, Institut des hautes études de l’Amérique latine, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Institutions and Research Centers:
- Emory University (fully funded PhD program)
- Halle Institute for Global Research (Summer 2023 Research Fellowship, $5,000)
- Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (Graduate Community of Digital Scholars program, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 cohorts)
- Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (Senior Digital Scholarship Associate, 2021-present)
- Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Research group on Colombian history and literature in the nineteenth century)
Technical Information
This project is hosted on ScholarsBlogs, an open-source WordPress platform provided by Emory University for use by students, faculty, and staff. Network visualizations were created using Gephi, an open-source network analysis and visualization software. Data was collected manually from digitized newspapers and organized for analysis using spreadsheet tools before being processed for network visualization.
As the mid-19th century unfolded, the momentum spread to other corners of Latin America. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela experienced the rise of women’s participation in cultural and social spheres. Despite this noteworthy transformation, much of the twentieth-century historiography and literary criticism focused predominantly on analyzing literary texts, critiques, and political debates proposed by men. Notable exceptions, such as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Fernán Caballero, Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, Clorinda Matto de Turner, and Soledad Acosta de Samper, were overshadowed, and many women’s voices remained in the archives.
This digital project seeks to address fundamental questions: Who were the members of the networks formed among Latin American women intellectuals in the 19th century, and what cultural products did they contribute to the public sphere? By doing so, the project aims to disrupt the traditional concept of the Latin American intellectual in the nineteenth century. Women, in addition to playing pivotal roles in nation-building through shaping public opinion, also fulfilled their traditional roles as mothers and wives – a variable often overlooked by historiography and criticism when analyzing the figure of the intellectual.
Welcome to this ongoing exploration as it is researched the voices and contributions of these remarkable women, reshaping our understanding of 19th-century Latin American intellectual history.