WORKS / AUTHORSHIP / CIRCULATION
The work of Serafina
A guide to identified writings and documented public interventions. This curated selection is not intended as a complete catalogue of everything Serafina Dávalos wrote.
- Curated records
- 4
- Period
- 1901–1910
- Reading modes
- 2
MAP OF THE WORK
From the press to the international stage.
In Story mode, each entry explains what was identified, when it appeared and where it circulated. Research mode also shows the underlying evidence, publication status, sources and uncertainties recorded in the canonical corpus.
READ AS A WHOLE
From a dispersed public voice to a broader programme.
The corpus we can show today is not a complete bibliography of Serafina Dávalos. It is more useful to read it as a sequence than as an exhaustive list. A trace from 1901 points to an early text whose original has yet to be found; in 1903 we encounter El feminismo, known through its history as a lecture and a serial publication; in 1907 Humanismo provides the best-documented body of argument; and in 1910 her closing address at the First International Women's Congress brings that voice to a regional public forum.
Taken together, these milestones reveal changes in medium and scale: newspaper, lecture, thesis and speech. They do not, on their own, prove a linear evolution in Serafina's thought or permit us to fill the intervening years with conjecture. They do show something more concrete: Serafina left more than a single, isolated work. Her interventions took different forms, connecting education, law, citizenship and women's organising at different moments in her public life.
Absences are also part of the story. Later bibliographies identify other titles whose original documents have not yet entered the corpus. This page therefore distinguishes documented writings, identified but unverified works, and later reception. Knowing a title is not the same as holding the document; a reprint does not turn an earlier text into a new work.
- 1903
Lecture and serial publication
El feminismo
The conference Feminism was announced in La Democracia (Aug 19, 1903) and was held under the patronage of the Society of Law Students before a large and select audience, with few women; The text was serialized in Nosotras (La Plata), numbers 46, 47 and 49 of November and December 1903.
Corroborated
La Democracialecture announcementConferenciaAsunciónNosotras (La Plata)issues 46, 47 and 49The original 1903 documents have not yet been located. The current canonical evidence relies on the modern 2025 edition and its documented source trail.
- 1907
Thesis
Humanismo
Humanismo (1907), Serafina Dávalos's thesis, is preserved with facsimiles of its cover and frontispiece. Its chapter headings include «La Mujer como ser biológico» (“Woman as a Biological Being”), «La esclavitud de la Mujer no es natural» (“The Enslavement of Women Is Not Natural”), «La Mujer ante el Derecho» (“Women Before the Law”) and «La Mujer paraguaya ante la Constitución Nacional» (“Paraguayan Women and the National Constitution”). In the work, she describes herself as «Catedrática en el Colegio Nacional» (“teacher at the National College”).
Primary source verified
Entering Humanism - 1910
Public address
Discurso de clausura del Primer Congreso Femenino Internacional
Serafina Dávalos participated as a Paraguayan delegate in the First International Women's Congress, was a member of the Propaganda Commission in America and was appointed to chair the Law section. She presided over the session on May 21 at the Presidente Roca School, put the proposal for absolute divorce up for discussion, and on May 24 she gave the closing speech and formally declared the congress closed. In that speech she defended the full personality of women, co-education, access to public employment, active and passive suffrage and equal pay.
Primary source verified
See in the biography
HISTORICAL EDITORIAL
Return to circulation.
Recovery and republication tell the story of how these writings circulated; they are not new works by Serafina.
1907
The thesis
Humanismo was presented in Asunción in September 1907.
nov 1986
A copy resurfaces
Rosita Palazón found a copy in her mother's library and passed it on to Line Bareiro.
1990
First modern reissue
The Centro de Documentación y Estudios (CDE) brought Humanismo back into circulation with a modern reissue.
2007
One hundred years of Humanismo
The CDE centenary edition includes Line Bareiro's three-part prologue—Atando cabos, Serafina y su época, and Humanismo es feminismo—alongside an editorial introduction and an appendix on Serafina's biographical reception.
SourcesSRC-0012025
Humanismo alongside El Feminismo
The Arandurã edition, compiled and introduced by Rosemary Dávalos, brings together the 1903 lecture and the 1907 thesis.
SERAFINA'S READINGS: 1920–2020
The work also has a history of how it was read.
These materials do not enlarge Serafina's own body of writing. They show how she was described, edited and interpreted, from an almost contemporary biography to twenty-first-century academic and editorial research.
Near-contemporary biographical profile
Paraguayans of To-Day: a biography that requires cross-checking
Serafina's profile occupies pages 187–188 of Paraguayans of To-Day and already appeared in the first edition of 1920. Its brief account of her education, legal practice, the Colegio Mercantil and the 1910 congress is valuable evidence of how she was portrayed at the time.
Modern academic interpretation
Moragas and Duré: interpreting Serafina today
Mirta Moragas Mereles's discussion Serafina Dávalos: una historia de transgresiones and Elizabeth Duré's En trazo feminista are examples of recent academic engagement and help trace changing interpretations of Serafina's life.
SourcesSRC-005Recent book and essay
Rocco Carbone: two editions and an essay on feminism and education
Rocco Carbone published Serafina Dávalos. Feminista with Servilibro (Asunción, 2019) and Ediciones UNGS (2020). In 2020 he also published the essay Serafina Dávalos: feminismo y educación in BORDES.
Open Investigation
What we still seek
- The original page of La Democracia dated 12 August 1901.
- The original 1903 sources: La Democracia and the relevant issues of Nosotras.
- A possible text from 1897 mentioned in the research: its authorship remains an open question and is not presented as established.