A new book looks to the writings of Renaissance-era nuns for advice on life today

Summary

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NPR's Book of the Day: “Convent Wisdom — How Renaissance-Era Nuns Can Help Us Today”

Episode Date: December 1, 2025
Host: Andrew Limbong (intro) / Asia Roscoe (interview)
Guests: Ana Gariga & Carmen Urbita, co-authors of Convent Wisdom

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the newly released book Convent Wisdom by Ana Gariga and Carmen Urbita, which draws surprising life lessons from the rarely-heard voices of 16th and 17th-century nuns. The conversation delves into how these historical women’s writings deliver enduring advice on everything from assertive self-expression (including writing better emails) to personal self-discovery and community relationships, revealing the often overlooked inner lives and agency of women in Renaissance convents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Renaissance-Era Nuns? The Origins of Fascination

• Ana Gariga shares that her deep dive into nuns’ writings began during her doctoral work in Spain, where nun-authored texts presented the only available women’s perspective in early modern literature.
  • “I was truly fascinated by the way all these women were able to revolt and to write.” — Ana Gariga [02:13]
• Carmen Urbita says her entry point was reading the autobiography of a demon-possessed nun, Jean Desange, which flipped cinematic exorcism tropes on their head.
  • “She talked about possession in her own terms...how these demons had to do with her own personality and her own traits.” — Carmen Urbita [03:08]

2. Relevance of Convent Lives to Modern Struggles

• Urbita explains that convents were, in many ways, rare spaces that allowed women to live outside the expectations of marriage, giving them time and agency to write, reflect, and form close bonds.
• The book's project is framed as recovering this “female archive” to find wisdom or comfort for today’s challenges:
  • “Maybe we'll find some answers or at least a little bit of peace for the present.” — Carmen Urbita [04:15]

3. Practical Wisdom: Assertive Communication from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

• The authors adapt strategies from 17th-century Mexican nun and scholar Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz on navigating power hierarchies and self-assertion in writing:
  • Learned the “sandwich technique” for assertive but polite communication (compliment → humility → ask for what you want → compliment again):
    • “You say something that it's going to make your reader feel great, and then you say something terrible about yourself because you're so humble. And then...you say what you really want to say, but in a very subtle way. And then you finish up with…being really laudatory.” — Carmen Urbita [05:36]
  • Notably, Sor Juana often signed her letters, “Yo, la peor de todas” (“I, the worst of all”), as a rhetorical move. [05:57]

4. Community, Rivalry, and Personal Growth

• The authors’ own relationship evolved while researching the nuns, reflecting lessons on female community and conflict:
  • Initially suspicious and competitive (“I thought, we're gonna hate each other”), they realized convent life meant learning to coexist and resolve differences.
    • “Something that we learned from our nuns is that...it made it harder to just get people out of their lives at the first difficulty. So we learned something of value there.” — Carmen Urbita [06:29]

5. Unexpected Personal Revelations

• Urbita recounts how reading about nuns’ struggles with identity helped her come to terms with her sexuality, a journey that paralleled the emotional self-exploration found in convent writings:
  • “It was truly therapeutic...I was married, then I got divorced...and I came out of the closet...I had to face the truth.” — Carmen Urbita [07:06]
• Gariga notes the irony and power of Renaissance nuns influencing modern sexuality and self-knowledge:
  • “It’s very funny to think that early modern nuns held out. Yes.” — Ana Gariga [07:23]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Sor Juana’s letter-writing tactics:
  • “It’s like the sandwich technique...And then you finish up with, again, you're being really laudatory.” — Carmen Urbita [05:36]
• On female camaraderie in convents and academia:
  • “We were doing exactly the same thing.” / “I didn't wanna tell that, but it's so much.” — Carmen Urbita & Ana Gariga [06:27]
• On the enduring impact of lost women’s voices:
  • “We've tried to recover this female archive and continue to do what they were doing.” — Carmen Urbita [04:14]

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Important Timestamps

• 01:18 — Asia Roscoe sets the stage: Why look to convents for guidance on modern anxiety
• 02:13 — Gariga and Urbita explain their scholarly and personal connections to nuns’ writings
• 04:37 — Insight on Sor Juana's rhetorical advice for assertive communications
• 06:04 — How academic rivalry was transformed into collaboration through lessons learned from nuns
• 07:06 — Urbita describes how researching nuns helped her personal journey of self-acceptance

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Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, approachable, and laced with scholarly enthusiasm. Both authors enjoy candidly discussing the unexpected modernity of Renaissance nuns—their resilience, intellect, and humor—as well as their own vulnerabilities as researchers and women.

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Summary

Convent Wisdom demonstrates that the world of 16th- and 17th-century nuns offers more than historical curiosity—it gives blueprints for resilience, assertiveness, community, and even self-discovery. Ana Gariga and Carmen Urbita, with both academic rigor and personal candor, bring these lost voices into today's world. Whether you want to write a better email, mend a friendship, or explore your authentic self, their book argues: listen to the nuns.

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Listen to the episode for more details, humor, and inspiration from history’s “original self-help” writers.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I guess technically today's book is a self help book, but it isn't like those 10 hacks to be more productive at the workplace kind of books. Instead, Ana Gauriga and Carmen Urbita are two academics who got fascinated by the lives of 16th century nuns. So much so that they wrote a whole book about what we today can glean from the lives of these women who lived in a convent so many years ago. The book is called Convent Wisdom and the two authors spoke to NPR's Asia Roscoe about how they learned about everything from writing better emails to their own sexuality from researching nuns. That's after the break.

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[Asia Roscoe]

Modern life is full of pressure deadlines, doom scrolling dating apps. It can make want to return to a simpler time? Maybe a convent in 16th century Spain? A new book makes the case that even though nuns in the 1500s may not have had to deal with screens, they did have to grapple with frenemies, overbearing church officials and shaky finances. And Convent Wisdom scholars Anna Gariga and Carmen Urbita scour the writings of Renaissance era nuns for nuggets of insights that can apply to current day dilemmas. Ana Gariga and Carmen Urbita join us now. Welcome to the program.

[Carmen Urbita]

Thank you so much.

[Asia Roscoe]

You both had PhDs from Brown University. That's where you met. How did you both end up so fascinated with nuns? And let's start with you, Ana.

[Ana Gariga]

For me it was because I was studying in Spain and I was focusing on early modern literature and I was like, I want to read a woman that was able to publish in the 16th century and the only option was sanctuary. So Favila. So after that I was truly fascinated by the way all these women were able to revolt and to write.

[Asia Roscoe]

So it was the nuns. They were the ones who were able to publish and that's how you got interested in them.

[Ana Gariga]

Yeah.

[Asia Roscoe]

And Carmen, what about you?

[Carmen Urbita]

I was studying at Oxford. I was doing my master's in literature. I still didn't Know what I was going to do my PhD about, but I just came across this autobiography by a French nun called Jean Desange. She was possessed by many, many demons. And I was at the fact that she wrote about it in a way that she made her demons her own.

[Asia Roscoe]

She made the demons her own. What do you mean by that?

[Carmen Urbita]

You know, we've all watched these nonsploitation movies where you see demons possessing women in a very physical and very, you know, voyeuristic way. So I was fascinated to see this other side of possession. She talked about possession in her own terms. She talked about how these demons had to do with her own personality and her own traits. That was very, very interesting.

[Asia Roscoe]

In the book, you point out that there weren't a lot of options for women back in this time. So why do you feel like the lives of these nuns in particular are relevant to today?

[Carmen Urbita]

I mean, if you were a woman in the 16th or 17th century and you didn't want to get married and risk your life giving birth, probably you just wanted to join the convent to live with your friends or your family members, the female family members who already lived there. Or you were fascinated by the lives of the saints who were really famous at the time and you just wanted to emulate them and try to achieve sainthood. There were many reasons why you wanted to join the convent, but one of them as well was that it was the only place where women at the time would have all the time and the means to write about their own experience and to share that with other women. We've tried to recover this female archive and continue to do what they were doing. Just recover these writings for the ones who were coming right after and maybe we'll find some answers or at least a little bit of peace for the present. I don't know.

[Asia Roscoe]

There is a funny passage where kind of using the 17th century nun Sor Juana as inspiration, you lay out five steps to writing an assertive, non people pleasing email. Tell me more about that.

[Ana Gariga]

Yeah, Carmen and me are like extremely people pleaser. One of the first seminars that we took at Brown was a seminar that was exclusively devoted to the writings of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. That is probably the most famous nun writer. She lived in 17th century Mexico. She was like a very atypical nun because she was an intellectual and she took part in the intellectual circles of her time and she was a master of rhetoric. So she wrote this very famous letter. Basically she had to find a way to revolt against her superiors and she did it. In a beautiful letter that was, like, a perfect maneuver without being, like, too rebellious.

[Carmen Urbita]

It's like the sandwich technique. You say something that it's going to make your reader feel great, and then you say something terrible about yourself because you're so humble. And then when they're not expecting it, you say what you really want to say, but in a very subtle way. And then you finish up with, again, you're being really laudatory.

[Ana Gariga]

And yes, let's not forget that Sor Juana ended up signing some of her letters as I the worst of all.

[Asia Roscoe]

So, okay, you know, a lot of the book also kind of catalogs the growing bond between the two of you. Were there any challenges or competition? Because, I mean, you guys are both studying, like, a very specific line of work.

[Carmen Urbita]

Well, before meeting, I thought, we're gonna hate each other. We were doing exactly the same thing.

[Ana Gariga]

I didn't wanna tell that, but it's so much.

[Carmen Urbita]

I think we both thought, oh, oh, my God, who's this girl? We're gonna hate each other. Something that we learned from our nuns is that the fact that these women had to live together for their whole lives made it harder to just get people out of their lives at the first difficulty. So we learned something of value there. There are better ways to try and work out things that may arise in any relationship, friendship, or any other kind of relationship.

[Asia Roscoe]

And one of you was actually coming to terms with your own sexuality as you were doing this research. I mean, how did reading about these sour, repressed nuns help with that realization?

[Carmen Urbita]

I mean, it was truly therapeutic. You know, it was life changing in a way. I was married, then I got divorced during this time, and I came out of the closet. And it's hard to say that I realized, but, yeah, in part I already knew, but I had to face the truth.

[Ana Gariga]

It's very funny to think that early modern nuns held out. Yes.

[Carmen Urbita]

I mean, they can really change your life.

[Asia Roscoe]

That was Carmen Urbita and Ana Gariga. Their new book is Convent wisdom. How 16th century nuns could save your 21st century life. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Ana Gariga]

Thank you for having us. It was great.

[Carmen Urbita]

Thank you so much.

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