Valerie Hegstrom, Brigham Young University associate professor of Spanish and women’s studies, will present “Finding Maria do Ceo, or What Spanish and Portuguese Literature Have to Do with Women's Studies.”

Events in the International Lecture Series qualify as Academic/Cultural Events in General Education for Meredith College students.

The International Lecture Series explores world cultures through history, literature, politics and religion. Hegstrom's presentation examines the life and writings of the seventeenth-century Portuguese nun, Maria do Ceo, and how they relate to women and women's studies today. Hegstrom’s research focuses primarily on the recovery of literary texts (plays, poems, stories, and letters) written in Spanish and Portuguese by noblewomen and nuns in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This lecture series is sponsored by the Meredith College Diversity Council, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, the Office of International Programs, Broder-Wallace Endowment of the History and Political Science Department at Meredith College, and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Alliance Française.