Spanish Professor Explores the “Contemplative in Action” in Scholarly and Campus Work
December 8, 2010
A renowned scholar who teaches courses on Renaissance literature, Professor Barbara Mujica is something of a “renaissance woman” in real life. The professor of Spanish writes novels, articles, and scholarly books, directs plays, and lobbies for Georgetown military veterans when she’s not inside the classroom.
Mujica finds that her varied interests often overlap in unique and enriching ways. Within two years, she has released both a historical novel and a scholarly book based on the letters of 16th century saint Teresa de Avila, famous for her ecstatic visions and for founding the Discalced Carmelite order of nuns. “I started doing research on Teresa for personal reasons,” Mujica explained, “because she speaks to me as a deeply, deeply spiritual woman who was also an activist. She was a contemplative, but really she gives meaning to the expression ‘contemplative in action’.” Despite angering Church officials and being interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition, Teresa founded convents, wrote prolifically, and championed a mode of faith that privileged interiority as the path to God.
Yet Mujica contends that the details of Teresa’s own life are far from simple. In the course of researching her scholarly book Teresa de Avila: Lettered Woman (2009), Mujica traveled to Spain to examine Teresa’s letters, which range from matters of faith to business affairs. Mujica explained, “I wanted to tell her story. But Teresa, like all interesting people, is very complex. There are many different angles to her personality, and this comes through in her letters.” Those letters reveal a writer who can be temperamental, manipulative, and vain, but also displays an unexpected love of cooking and a devotion to women’s education.
So intriguing was Teresa’s humanness that it inspired Mujica to write a historical novel about the saint, entitled Sister Teresa (2007). She asked, “supposing you knew someone like Teresa, who went into ecstasy, who saw visions, who heard voices, what would you think? What would it be like to know somebody like [her]? On the one hand, you admire her, because she’s so deeply spiritual. On the other hand, it would be kind of scary.” Mujica explored those reactions through the fictional character of Sister Angelica, who befriends the future saint. Yet Mujica also framed fiction with fact – painting a realistic setting for her characters that allowed her to expand her usually specified scholarly research into the “nitty-gritty” details of daily life in early modern Spain.
Mujica also takes a lesson to be her own “contemplative in action” as she works to develop resources for US military veterans on campus. Her son Mauro is a Georgetown alumnus and a Marine who served two tours in Iraq. After he returned, Mujica explained, “My son was home, he was safe, and I really felt like I needed to give back.” Now, as the faculty advisor to the Georgetown University chapter of the Student Veterans of America (GUSVA), Mujica is working with student veterans and university officials to establish a Veterans Resource Center on campus. With Mujica’s help, the GUSVA has grown into a significant campus group that this year alone organized the campus-wide Veterans Day celebration and hosted the National Student Veterans Association conference in October.
At the same time, Mujica is finishing another novel (“It’s about the painter Velázquez. There will be veterans in it”) and has a number of other projects in the works. Her next scholarly book will study the followers of St. Teresa, and she hopes to direct a play by Miguel de Cervantes in the coming year. Likewise, after the success of her curated exhibition, “Portraits in Piety: Lives of Women Saints and Women Religious”, in the fall at Lauinger Library, Mujica is hoping to collaborate with Lauinger Special Collections on another show. “I want to call it ‘Flying Nuns and Other Travelers’,” she laughed.
Mujica credited the university’s atmosphere for her ability to pursue so many creative avenues. “Georgetown is a blessing for the people who have been here. The one great thing about being in a Jesuit university is that you have tremendous freedom. You have freedom to explore your own potential intellectually, spiritually, artistically,” Mujica explained. “I can write, I can teach, I can study, I can work with the veterans, I can direct plays, I can interact with people, and meet new people. I can’t imagine any other job where I could do all of those things.”
--Jessica Beckman
Photos by Yovcho Yovchev.
