Death in the City: Suicide and the Social Imaginary in Modern Mexico

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Univ of California Press, Apr 11, 2017 - History - 272 pages
At the turn of the twentieth century, many observers considered suicide to be a worldwide social problem that had reached epidemic proportions. In Mexico City, violent deaths in public spaces were commonplace in a city undergoing rapid modernization. Crime rates mounted, corpses piled up in the morgue, and the media reported on sensational cases of murder and suicide. More troublesome still, a compelling death wish appeared to grip women and youth. Drawing on a range of sources from judicial records to the popular press, Death in the City investigates the cultural meanings of self-destruction in modern Mexico. The author examines responses to suicide and death and disproves the long-held belief that Mexicans possess a cavalier attitude toward suffering.
 

Contents

Suicide
34
Media Moral Panic and Youth Suicide
71
Medical Meanings
116
Suicide and Public Space
147
Death Vernacular Mourning
176
Conclusion
199
Bibliography
237
Index
251
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About the author (2017)

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.

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