Beginning with her precursors in the Old and New World, this course approaches Guadalupe as a tool to pry open questions central to Mexican and Chicano/a identity. For some, she is a compassionate mother-figure with characteristics once attributed to powerful pre-Columbian goddesses; for others, she is a feminist champion of political revolution and human rights. This course concentrates on the most compelling contexts in which Guadalupe has been called on to negotiate religious, racial, sexual, and national identity.