In this Book
- La Castañeda Insane Asylum: Narratives of Pain in Modern Mexico
- Book
- 2020
- Published by: University of Oklahoma Press
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
La Castañeda Insane Asylum is the first inside view of the workings of La Castañeda General Insane Asylum—a public mental health institution founded in Mexico City in 1910 only months before the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. It links life within the asylum’s walls to the radical transformations brought about as Mexico entered the Revolution’s armed phase and then endured under succeeding modernizing regimes.
Author Cristina Rivera Garza brings the history of La Castañeda asylum to life as inmates, doctors, relatives, and others engage in dialogues on insanity. They discuss faith, sex, poverty, loss, resentment, envy, love, and politics. Doctors translated what they heard into the emerging language of psychiatry, while inmates conveyed their personal experiences and private histories through expressions of mental suffering. The language of pain—physical and spiritual, mild to excruciating—allowed patients to detail the sources and consequences of their misfortune.
Available now for the first time in English, this edition contains updated sources and features a note by the translator, Laura Kanost.
Author Cristina Rivera Garza brings the history of La Castañeda asylum to life as inmates, doctors, relatives, and others engage in dialogues on insanity. They discuss faith, sex, poverty, loss, resentment, envy, love, and politics. Doctors translated what they heard into the emerging language of psychiatry, while inmates conveyed their personal experiences and private histories through expressions of mental suffering. The language of pain—physical and spiritual, mild to excruciating—allowed patients to detail the sources and consequences of their misfortune.
Available now for the first time in English, this edition contains updated sources and features a note by the translator, Laura Kanost.
Table of Contents
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- Introduction
- pp. 1-16
- 2. Entryway
- pp. 41-53
- 3. The Psychiatric Interview
- pp. 54-80
- Illustrations
- pp. 111-120
- 5. Looking Insane
- pp. 121-145
- 6. The Pain of Becoming Modern
- pp. 146-162
- 7. Con-juring the Body
- pp. 163-178
- Bibliography
- pp. 217-234
- About the Author and Translator
- pp. 235-236
Additional Information
ISBN
9780806168531
Related ISBN(s)
9780806167237
MARC Record
OCLC
1155487295
Launched on MUSE
2020-11-05
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND