Of Love and Other Passions
Of Love and Other Passions
Elites, Politics, and Family in Bogotá, Colombia, 1778–1870
In Of Love and Other Passions Guiomar Dueñas-Vargas delves into the world of emotions among the bourgeois elite in Bogotá from the end of the colonial period to 1870. While most studies of the period focus solely on the country’s political activity, Dueñas-Vargas shows how Colombia’s social, cultural, and political changes transformed the meaning of love, which contributed to the evolution of new models of femininity and masculinity.
By examining sources such as personal letters and diaries, Dueñas-Vargas presents the emotional profiles of families and couples, demonstrating how their conduct challenged the established order. As lovers insisted on choosing their own mates rather than marrying spouses selected by their parents, they undermined the patriarchal structure of Colombian society. Such decisions unveil the many functions women assumed in both public and private life and how they participated in the invention of a nation.
Dueñas-Vargas makes good use of letters (and diaries) to create a rich tapestry of the lives and loves of elite families.…[She] makes fascinating connections between internal, personal emotions and political culture.
“[This book] offers a new approach to the history of Colombia, one that highlights the importance of affect and subjectivity to understanding not only marriage and gender but also Colombian state and nation formation. Historians have been slow to evaluate the impact of broad movements like romanticism and modernism, leaving these to their colleagues in literature. This book shows how these ways of framing one’s place in the world might be central not only to the private sphere but also to broader changes in politics and the nation.â€�â€'William French, coeditor of Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Latin America since Independence
Guiomar Dueñas-Vargas is a professor of history at the University of Memphis. Her earlier books, like the Spanish edition of this one, were published in Colombia.
