College of Charleston Hispanic studies professor Sarah E. Owens credits her students and fellow scholars for inspiring her to co-author Women of the Iberian Atlantic, for which she and collaborator Jane E. Mangan won the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women’s (SSEMW) 2012 Best Collaborative Project Award September 29, 2013.
Women of the Iberian Atlantic is a compilation of 10 essays from distinguished Spanish, History and Literature scholars from across the country. The book shines a light on the stories and context of Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American, Indigenous and African American women who lived in the Iberian Atlantic between 1500 and 1800.
“I’m extremely thrilled and honored. I could count the possible awards we could have won for an edited volume on one hand,” Owens said. “The fact that we qualify for this award is so exciting.”
[Related: Learn more about the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women]
Owens worked with students in a Hispanic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies dual-credit class to organize a 2010 conference sponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program at the College. The conference attracted 30 scholars from around the world, each of whom presented on specific aspects of the women of the Iberian empire.
Owens’ experience at the conference inspired her to start writing Women of the Iberian Atlantic, her second book. “It was so enlightening for me because I got to focus on different types of women in the Iberian Atlantic,” Owens, who wrote her doctorate dissertation on 18th century Mexican nuns, said. “I think they’re all stories that need to be told.”
[Related: Read about Women of the Iberian Atlantic]
Owens collaborated with Mangan on the book and its introduction. She also co-wrote an essay on healthcare in Mexico City convents with her colleague Nuria Salazar Simarro, while Mangan wrote an independent essay.
The book includes writings by both scholars who focus on literature and those who focus on history, a combination that was important to Owens. “This book shows that historians and literature professors can work together,” she said. “This is a true collaboration between different types of scholars.”
The National Endowment of the Humanities awarded Owens with a fellowship in 2012 to work on her third book, a piece about 17th century nuns who travelled from Spain to the Philippines.
[Related: Spanish Professor Awarded Prestigious NEH Fellowship]
Owens will attend the 16th Century Studies conference in Puerto Rico October 2013 to receive the award. The Collaborative Project Award is Owens’ second award from the SSEMW, she first won the Award for Best Scholarly Edition in 2010.
Owens can be reached at owenss@cofc.edu.
