Mercedes Pérez Vidal holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Oviedo. She has been post doc fellow at the UNAM, at the University of Padua, and at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

[T]his is a collection that merits the attention of scholars of medieval and early modern female monasticism. Each essay includes insights and/or methodological considerations that contribute in significant ways to our understanding of convents and nuns and their intersections with the secular world.

• "Introduction," by Mercedes Pérez VidalChapter 1. "Dominican Women. Dominican Identity for Women during the First Centuries of the Order of Preachers (1200-1500)," by Sylvie DuvalChapter 2. "Being in Touch with the Outside. Economic Exchanges of the Observant Dominican Convent St. Catherine in St. Gall (Switzerland)," by Claudia SutterChapter 3. "Beyond the Wall. Nuns, Power, Celebrations, and Sex in Late Medieval Galicia," by Miguel García FernándezChapter 4. "Reform and Reforms in Dominican Nunneries in Spain and Latin America," by Mercedes Pérez VidalChapter 5. "Transatlantic Ties: The Circulation of Objects, Books, and Ideas in Mid-Seventeenth Century Mexican Nunneries," by Doris Bieñko de PeraltaChapter 6. "Estefania de San Joseph and Esperanza de San Alberto: Dual Discourse in the Lives of Two Exemplary Afro-Women Religious in Early Modern Spanish-America," by Valérie BenoistChapter 7. "Le monachisme bourbonien et la fabrication de l'autorité au féminin à Fontevraud au XVIIᵉ siècle," by Annalena Müller