Join online faculty lecture on women’s bodies, wet-nurses and Spain
McKillop Library will host the first of its faculty lecture series for the 20-21 academic year, this time online. The lecture, entitled “Breast is Best in Early Modern Spain,” is by Dr. Emily Colbert Cairns, associate professor of modern languages, and it will be held on Thursday, Sep. 17, from 4-5:30 p.m.
To register for the online event, to go the library’s event page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the “Begin Registration” button.
Dr. Emily Colbert Cairns
“Breast is Best in Early Modern Spain” is on the topic of women’s bodies, wet-nurses and early modern Spain. Maternal milk is the first food practice that serves to control the female body, enabling certain women but not others from nursing infants.
In this presentation, Dr. Colbert Cairns shares her research from a sabbatical her took in Spain during the fall of 2019. While in Spain, Dr. Colbert Cairns conducted primary research in hospital archives regarding the use of wet-nurses and their orphan charges in Seville, Spain.
Establishing a primary residence in Seville, Spain, allowed Dr. Colbert Cairns to visit and study first-hand some of the important artistic representations of the lactating virgin in the Museum of Bellas Artes, within the Cathedral of Seville and in the Archbishop’s Palace. These paintings comprise a key aspect of the research — they reflect the widespread and popular appeal this topic had for an early modern Iberian audience.
In addition, this discussion will focus on two of these paintings found within Seville’s Cathedral: “Virgen de los Remedios,” painted anonymously in 1400 A.D., and “The Purification of the Virgen,” by Pedro de la Campaña in 1555 A.D.
“The Purification of the Virgen,” by Pedro de la Campaña in 1555 A.D
Dr. Colbert Cairns specializes in gender, converso and crypto-Jewish identity in the early modern period and has published with eHumanista, Chasqui, Cervantes Journal and Hispanófila. She is the co-editor of “Confined Women: The Walls of Female Space in Early Modern Spain” by “Hispanic Issues Online 2020,” and she is the author of the book “Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas.”
Register for the online faculty lecture at the library’s event page, and find a listing of upcoming events from McKillop Library here. For any additional questions, please contact Gretchen Sotomayer at gretchen.sotomayor@salve.edu.
