Women in Transit

Name: Women in Transit
Author: Vanesa Miseres
ISBN: 9781683406334

Travel, Identity, and Writing in South America, 1830-1910

by Vanesa Miseres

Translated by Kimrey Anna Batts

Published by: University of Florida Press

This book explores the work of nineteenth-century women writers who used travel writing to navigate patriarchal constraints in the literary and political landscapes of South America, using their nonfiction travelogues as platforms for social critique.

256 Pages6.00 × 9.007 b/w illus., notes, bibliography, index

Paperback
9781683406334
Published: April 27, 2027

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Hardcover
9781683406709
Published: April 27, 2027

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EPUB
9781683406136
Published: April 27, 2027

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PDF
9781683407096
Published: April 27, 2027

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Description
Authors
Praise

Revealing the power and potential of travel writing for four trailblazing women in nineteenth-century South America

Women in Transit explores how nineteenth-century women reshaped the literary and political landscapes of South America. Available here in English, this award-winning book centers on four writers—Flora Tristan, Juana Manuela Gorriti, Eduarda Mansilla, and Clorinda Matto de Turner—who strategically used travel writing to navigate patriarchal constraints. While these writers are traditionally celebrated for their fiction, this book uncovers how their nonfiction travelogues served as platforms for social critique.

Vanesa Miseres argues that travel writing can destabilize strict binaries such as public versus private and masculine versus feminine. By centering on the fluid concept of being in transit, Miseres demonstrates how these women transformed a marginalized genre into a powerful tool to engage in vital debates about national identity and citizenship. She opens up fresh perspectives on how women connected with the land, its territories, and its inhabitants, fostering new relationships with geography that moved entirely beyond traditional notions of appropriation, ownership, or capitalist interest.

Through its transnational approach, this book offers a comprehensive look at regional women’s intellectual thought in South America while providing a versatile framework to analyze women’s travel production globally. Women in Transit is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in gender studies, history, Latin America, and the enduring power of women’s voices.

Vanesa Miseres, associate professor of Spanish at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of Gender Battles: Latin American Women, War, and Feminism.

Praise for the Spanish-language edition:
International Institute of Ibero-American Literature Alfredo Roggiano Prize for Latin American Literary Criticism
Honorable Mention, Association of Gender and Sexuality Studies Victoria Urbano Prize for Critical Monograph
“A refreshing contribution to the growing body of literary and cultural studies that address the important role played by women’s writing in shaping nineteenth-century imaginaries regarding modernity, national identities, and the role of women in society. / Un refrescante aporte al creciente corpus de estudios literarios y culturales que abordan el importante rol desempeñado por la escritura de mujeres en la conformación de los imaginarios decimonónicos en torno a la modernidad, las identidades nacionales y el papel de la mujer en la Sociedad.”—Hispanic Review
“An indispensable tool for researchers interested in the theoretical intersections between cultural studies, feminism, and travel literature in the nineteenth century. / Una herramienta indispensable para investigadorxs que estén interesados en los cruces teóricos entre estudios culturales, feminismo y literatura de viajes en el siglo XIX.”—Revista de Estudios Hispánicos
“Women in Transit offers an engaging and original perspective. This book illustrates how four women—who have become canonical figures in nineteenth-century Latin American women’s writing in recent years—used travel chronicles to navigate patriarchal constraints and engage in critical conversations about national identity, feminine citizenship, historiography, and Latin American identity. A relevant and significant study.”—Catalina Rodriguez, Boston University