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"Death has been a familiar topic of study for Mexico. Historians and other scholars have had a morbid fascination with Mexico’s culture where it pertains to death—there have been studies on death culture, funerals, and graveyards—but suicide has not, until now, attracted much scholarship. This is a wonderful and highly innovative work that marks a major contribution to the literature on the histories of suicide and death in modern Mexico."—Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Professor of History, Carleton University
"This is the only book about suicide in Mexico City that focuses on this period and is one of the few books that address this topic in Latin America. The author has uncovered new sources in addition to forensic information and newspaper articles that have received only limited systematic attention until now. The cases presented in this excellent work are rich, thoughtful, and sensitive."—Laura M. Shelton, Assistant Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 • A Social History of Suicide in Mexico City, 1900–1930
2 • From Corpse to Cadaver: Suicide and the Forensic Gaze
3 • Media, Moral Panic, and Youth Suicide
4 • The Modern Disease: Medical Meanings and Approaches to Suicide
5 • Death in the City: Suicide and Public Space
6 • Stains of Blood: Death, Vernacular Mourning, and Suicide
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Kathryn A. Sloan is Associate Dean of Fine Arts and Humanities in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. She is the author of Runaway Daughters: Seduction, Elopement, and Honor in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Women’s Roles in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Summary
Drawing on an extensive range of sources, from judicial records to the popular press, this book examines the cultural meanings of death and self-destruction in modern Mexico. It includes approaches and responses to suicide and death, disproving the long-held belief that Mexicans possessed a cavalier response to death.
Additional text
Sloan offers us a sharp portrait of how some early-twentieth-century urban Mexicans debated social change and pondered a profoundly gendered realm of suicide.... [Her] coherent structure and clear prose make it suitable for students as well as specialists.
