Women as public intellectuals during the Hispanic Enlightenment

Abstract

The importance of the public and private spheres during the Enlightenment has been the subject of much scholarly debate, sparked by the 1989 translation to English of Jurgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Feminist scholars especially have been interested in the gendered nature of these divisions. This essay will examine eighteenth century women in Spain and Latin America in the public sphere—some who were held up by ilustrados (enlightened men) as models, and others who initiated their own participation in the public sphere at intellectual gatherings, on the pages of the burgeoning periodical press, and in their published texts—concluding with a close look at the public intellectual, Josefa Amar y Borbon and her Ensayo historico-apologetico de la literatura Espanola.