Beyond the Cloister: Letters of the Goan Nuns as an Expression of Female Agency in the 18th Century

During the modern period, convents and monasteries served as fertile grounds for female writing. Religious constitutions mandated literacy for certain positions, leading to extensive administrative documents, autobiographies, and exemplary life accounts. However, female writing within cloister extended beyond administrative and religious matters, encompassing diverse and often rebellious letters. This study aims to examine 18th-century female epistolography within the Portuguese Empire, focusing on letters written by nuns at the Convent of Santa Monica in Goa. The research centers on a significant crisis between 1721 and 1738, during which the Augustinian nuns were in conflict with the Archbishop of Goa, D. Fr. Inácio de Santa Teresa. This dispute led to a division within the religious community and generated a substantial body of documents, many written and/or signed by the nuns themselves. The objective is to analyze these letters to understand the discursive positions and forms of self-representation adopted by the religious senders, examining how they dialogued or conflicted with the societal constraints of the period.