Quill and Cross in the Borderlands

“Anna M. Nogar’s contribution is necessary and just, in great part because nuns from both sides of the Atlantic are frequently decontextualized for the sake of exclusively theological, gender, or ideological interests.” —Latin American Literature Today

“Nogar weaves Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda’s roles as woman religious, author, mystic, and protomissionary into a vibrant historical trajectory that moves beyond fragmentary treatment of the nun as a predominantly folk figure.” —Journal of Folklore Research

“Quill and Cross in the Borderlands will be an invaluable source for scholars of the American Southwest and Mexico alike. Nogar’s remarkable archival research coupled with copious transcriptions and translations of historical documents reveals how Sor María De Ágreda permeated New Spanish society.” —Aztlan

"An exhaustive study of the 17th century Spanish nun who miraculously appeared to tribes in colonial-era New Mexico and taught them the Catholic faith—while never crossing the ocean. . . . While the Lady in Blue's apparition has been written off as fantastical, Nogar focuses on the nun's spiritual writings, which have been overshadowed by her folklore narrative." —Mirage Magazine

"Nogar produced an excellent study that lays out the entrance of Christianity into the northern borderlands. Most important, as a text on Ágreda’s life, writings, and apparitions, it clearly documents her significance to the history and colonization of New Spain’s northern frontier." —The Americas

"Nogar excels in her fine-grain, textually grounded analysis. She draws on a broad and varied source base, ranging from seventeenth-century miracle narratives to architectural renderings, library index lists, and operas. Nogar also shines in her engagement with visual sources." —Hispanic American Historical Review

"Quill and Cross in the Borderlands achieves the difficult balance between academic rigor and readability and is a valuable resource for Sor María specialists and students alike. It may also engage aficionados of early modern women’s writing or southwestern history." —Colonial Latin American Review

"Nogar’s well-researched and beautifully written Quill and Cross in the Borderlands ties the early writings of Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, the Lady in Blue, to the later folklore that arose from her miraculous visits to indigenous communities beginning in the 1630s." —Journal of the West

"Writing about someone whose life and writings involve claims considered outrageously impossible by most contemporary scholars is challenging—to say the least—and so is having to interweave historical, theological, and literary analysis of the significance of any such wonder-worker, but Nogar grapples with this challenge successfully." —Church History

"With Nogar’s monograph, the reader will be able to recognize and appreciate the importance of Sor María de Jesús as a writer and mystical missionary for the history and the spiritual life of Mexican and US-Mexico borderlands politics and folklore." —Early Modern Women

“At every level, this story offers linguistic accessibility, an introduction to complex historical processes of colonization and transculturization, and a clear respect for the cultures and peoples in the Lady in Blue narrative.” —Chiricú Journal