Asunción Lavrin
Cuban academic
Asunción Lavrin (born 1935 in Havana, Cuba) is a historian and author, notably in topics of gender and women's studies in colonial and twentieth century Latin America as well as religion and spirituality in Colonial Mexico. She is Professor Emerita at Arizona State University.
Personal life
Lavrin is the daughter-in-law of the artist Nora Fry Lavrin. She has two children, Cecilia and Andy, and two grand children, Erik and Nora.
Education and academic career
After entering the US for a Master of Arts at Radcliffe College (completed in 1957), Lavrin completed a PhD dissertation at Harvard University in 1963, entitled: "Religious Life of Mexican Women in the XVIII Century". Lavrin was among the first group of women to receive a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Publications
Lavrin has published extensively on women in Latin America, especially on women in Mexico. She has contributed significantly to the history of Roman Catholicism in Mexico, beginning with a number of her early articles drawn from her dissertation on nuns and nunneries, culminating in her monograph Brides of Christ. Conventual Life in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, 2008) She also has addressed the economic issues of elite secular women in colonial Mexico, in her co-authored work on dowries and wills of women in Mexico City and Guadalajara. She also has interests in more general topics of colonial Mexican economic history such as her analysis of the relation between the social elites and ecclesiastical wealth.
The public source identifies “Asunción Lavrin” as cuban academic. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Asunción, Lavrin and Cuban.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Asunción Lavrin”, the useful work is to connect “cuban academic” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15431754. VIAF identifies the subject as 93512112. The Library of Congress control number is n78035774. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1957, 1963 and 2008.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Asunción Lavrin”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Asunción Lavrin primary sources, Asunción Lavrin archive and Asunción research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Asunción Lavrin”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Asunción Lavrin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.