Intellectual Property as Self-Ownership

Sor Juana's defiant assertion of her intellectual authority—publishing under her own name, defending her right to study forbidden texts, refusing ecclesiastical censorship—articulates a libertarian vision of the mind as property of the self. Her struggle against the Church's attempt to control her thought demonstrates that freedom requires ownership of one's own ideas and labor. In the context of property and freedom, intellectual property emerges not as corporate monopoly but as the natural right of the creator to their own mental work. Sor Juana's legacy illuminates how institutional power seeks to expropriate thought itself, and how libertarian justice must protect the individual's sovereignty over their own knowledge production. This concept challenges both feudal and modern forms of intellectual subordination.