Customer Reviews

Jesus in Our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent (Ethnographic Studies in Subjectivity)

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This is an excellent piece of scholarship and prose. Rebecca Lester takes us into the lives of young Mexican postulants in a way that challenges how we think about "being" and "becoming". Lester investigates, and clearly articulates, how twenty young women learn to embody what it means to be a nun within the unique Mexican nationalist context. The first half of the book investigates how the women learn to be nuns through the reshaping of their own subjective experiences of the world, their selves, and God. The second half chronicles the social history of life in Mexico, paying particular attention to local conceptions of femininity and modernity. Readers will learn how the convent's philosophy resonates with Mexican femininity in a way that provides the young postulants with a legitimate avenue for being both a modern and tradition Mexican woman through serving God and the poor. Though Jesus in Our Wombs is theoretically rigorous, Lester writes with clarity, articulating deep philosophical questions and insights in everyday language. This is a MUST READ for people interested in anthropology, existential philosophy, feminist theory, Mexico, and Catholicism. Yes, indeed, readers will find so much to think and talk about after reading this book!