Women, Mysticism, and Hysteria in Fin-de-Siècle Spain argues that the reinterpretation of female mysticism as hysteria and nymphomania in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain was part of a larger project to suppress the growing female emancipation movement by sexualizing the female subject. This archival-historical work highlights the phenomenon in medical, social, and literary texts of the time, illustrating that despite many liberals' hostility toward the Church, secular doctors and intellectuals employed strikingly similar paradigms to those through which the early modern Spanish Church castigated female mysticism as demonic possession. Author Jennifer Smith also directs modern historians to the writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) as a thinker whose work points out mysticism's subversive potential in terms of the patriarchal order. Pardo Bazán, unlike her male counterparts, rejected the hysteria diagnosis and promoted mysticism as a path for women's personal development and self-realization.

"This book provides very important evidence that changes in institutional attitudes toward manual language can be traced to broader changes in the accepted conceptions of the nature of language. . . . [It] will prove to be a milestone in the developing discipline of deaf history."--Harlan Lane, author of The Mask of Benevolence

Long considered a classic in Bolivia, Juan de la Rosa tells the story of a young boy's coming of age during the violent and tumultuous years of Bolivia's struggle for independence. Indeed, in this remarkable novel, Juan's search for his personal identity functions as an allegory of Bolivia's search for its identity as a nation. Set in the early 1800s, the novel is narrated by one of the last surviving Bolivian rebels, octogenarian Juan de la Rosa. Juan recreates his childhood in the rebellious town of Cochabamba, and with it a large cast of full bodied, Dickensian characters both heroic and malevolent. The larger cultural dislocations brought about by Bolivia's political upheaval are echoed in those experienced by Juan, whose mother's untimely death sets off a chain of unpredictable events that propel him into the fiery crucible of the South American Independence Movement. Outraged by Juan's outspokenness against Spanish rule and his awakening political consciousness, his loyalist guardians banish him to the countryside, where he witnesses firsthand the Spaniards' violent repression and rebels' valiant resistance that crystallize both his personal destiny and that of his country. In Sergio Gabriel Waisman's fluid translation, English readers have access to Juan de la Rosa for the very first time.

An accessible introduction to the social history of medicine in Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, set within its political, cultural, intellectual and economic contexts

This collection of ten essays investigates the rationale of (public) health interventions from the nineteenth century through to the late twentieth century. It explores a variety of national and international contexts that range from imperial and colonial confrontation to the founding of the World Health Organisation. Social medicine is a particularly prominent theme, revealing how in the course of a century the once clear distinction between prevention and care came to be so blurred. This collection of ten essays investigates the rationale of (public) health interventions from the nineteenth century through to the late twentieth century. It explores a variety of national and international contexts that range from imperial and colonial confrontation to the founding of the World Health Organisation. Social medicine is a particularly prominent theme, revealing how in the course of a century the once clear distinction between prevention and care came to be so blurred. By bringing together leading scholars in the fields of social history, history of medicine, psychiatry, history of science, demography and geography, this book shows how religious beliefs, welfare politics, professional associations and the challenges of war have contributed to the shifting political arena, especially at an international level. The result is a volume which not only enhances our understanding of modern society, but also helps to clarify the cultural meaning of medicine as a historical agent.