Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines how industrialism led to the negation of racialized bodies, knowledges, and spaces. It analyzes the concept of the âœindividualâ as a medical, economic, political, and theoretical term, focusing on how medical knowledge, doctors, surgery, experimentation, healing, and the soul are treated in Mexican American modernist literature.
Trade ReviewDora Ramirez examines the writings of Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Teresa Urrea, Maria Cristina Mena, and Josefina Niggli through the critical lens of contemporary medical environmental theories of the body and of the soul. She explodes the modernist concerns with the body and the soul by deploying an eclectic medical humanities and Chicana feminist analysis to highlight the contributions of these stars in the Chicanx literary heavens. Undoubtedly students and scholars of American literature and specifically Native American, Chicanx or Latinx literatures will find a treasure trove of observations and insights in Medical Imagery and Fragmentation: Modernism, Scientific Discourse, and the Mexican, Indigenous Body, 1870-1940s -- Norma Cantu, Trinity University
Table of ContentsChapter One - On the Edges of Fragmentation Chapter Two - Entrance into the Soul: The Benevolent Doctor as a Colonizing Agent in Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) Chapter Three – “The Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico”: Medical Rhetoric as Social Order in late 19th Century Mexico and the United States Chapter Four - A Gift from God: Religion and Science in María Cristina Mena’s Short Fiction Chapter Five - Costumbrismo in a Shadowed World: Anxiety in Josefina Niggli’s Step Down, Elder Brother
