Lambe, Jennifer Lynn (Author)
University of North Carolina Press
Physical Details: 345 pages
Language: English
On the outskirts of Havana lies Mazorra, an asylum known to--and at times feared by--ordinary Cubans for over a century. Since its founding in 1857, the island's first psychiatric hospital has been an object of persistent political attention. Drawing on hospital documents and government records, as well as the popular press, photographs, and oral histories, Jennifer L. Lambe charts the connections between the inner workings of this notorious institution and the highest echelons of Cuban politics. Across the sweep of modern Cuban history, she finds, Mazorra has served as both laboratory and microcosm of the Cuban state: the asylum is an icon of its ignominious colonial and neocolonial past and a crucible of its republican and revolutionary futures.From its birth, Cuban psychiatry was politically inflected, drawing partisan contention while sparking debates over race, religion, gender, and sexuality. Psychiatric notions were even invested with revolutionary significance after 1959, as the new government undertook ambitious schemes for social reeducation. But Mazorra was not the exclusive province of government officials and professionalizing psychiatrists. U.S. occupiers, Soviet visitors, and, above all, ordinary Cubans infused the institution, both literal and metaphorical, with their own fears, dreams, and alternative meanings. Together, their voices comprise the madhouse that, as Lambe argues, haunts the revolutionary trajectory of Cuban history.
...MoreReview José Amador (2018) Review of "Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History". American Historical Review (pp. 275-276).
Review Stephanie H Gonzalez (2018) Review of "Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History". History of Psychiatry (pp. 496-497).
Review Manuella Meyer (2019) Review of "Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (pp. 167-168).
Review Jonathan D. Ablard (2018) Review of "Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 217-219).
Review Edward Shorter (2017) Review of "Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 925-926).
Similar Citations
Chapter
Giovanni Silvano;
(2020)
Philip Pinel tra Francia e America nell’Ottocento
(/isis/citation/CBB972746471/)
Chapter
Giovanni Silvano;
(2020)
Ospedali e ospizi a Parigi dopo la Rivoluzione. Verso una più accurata diagnosi della patologia mentale
(/isis/citation/CBB613232523/)
Chapter
Giovanni Silvano;
(2020)
Una sfida per l’amministrazione di ospedali e ospizi a Parigi dopo l’89
(/isis/citation/CBB142493911/)
Article
David L. Evers;
(2021)
Nineteenth Century Moral Treatment of Mental Illness Wore Many Hats
(/isis/citation/CBB519096696/)
Thesis
Alex Crawley;
(2018)
Method in His Madness Enacting Male Normativity in Holloway Sanatorium for the Insane, 1880-1910
(/isis/citation/CBB459377349/)
Article
Viviana Faschi;
(2018)
Nietzsche's Illness Diagnosis Issues: A Review of His Clinical Records and Some Recent Hypotheses
(/isis/citation/CBB271866077/)
Article
Coleborne, Catharine;
(2009)
Families, Insanity, and the Psychiatric Institution in Australia and New Zealand, 1860--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001232097/)
Book
Jones, Greta;
Malcolm, Elizabeth;
(1999)
Medicine, disease, and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940
(/isis/citation/CBB000110599/)
Article
Jabert, Alexander;
(2005)
Formas de administração da loucura na Primeira República: o caso do estado do Espírito Santo
(/isis/citation/CBB000640220/)
Article
Finnane, Mark;
(2009)
Australian Asylums and Their Histories: Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB001232093/)
Article
Monk, Lee-Ann;
(2009)
Working in the Asylum: Attendants to the Insane
(/isis/citation/CBB001232098/)
Book
Leslie Topp;
(2017)
Freedom and the Cage: Modern Architecture and Psychiatry in Central Europe, 1890–1914
(/isis/citation/CBB565460951/)
Article
Fiora Gaspari;
(2019)
L’Archivio storico di San Servolo. Voci dalle cartelle cliniche
(/isis/citation/CBB169681029/)
Book
Ziff, Katherine K.;
(2012)
Asylum on the Hill: History of a Healing Landscape
(/isis/citation/CBB001200650/)
Article
Weaver, John;
Wright, David;
(2009)
Suicide, Mental Illness, and Psychiatry in Queensland, 1890--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB001232099/)
Article
Boyce, Niall;
(2012)
A Secret History
(/isis/citation/CBB001200870/)
Article
Annacarla Valeriano;
(2019)
Voci dalle cartelle. Alcune linee di ricerca dall’archivio storico del manicomio Sant’Antonio abate di Teramo
(/isis/citation/CBB521766391/)
Chapter
Matteo Borri;
(2020)
L’evoluzione del trattamento morale: da Philippe Pinel a Emil Kraepelin
(/isis/citation/CBB980576552/)
Article
Maria Luisa Valacchi;
Davide Orsini;
Francesca Vannozzi;
(2019)
Solo "roba da matti"? Le sostanze di origine minerale della Farmacia del Manicomio di Siena
(/isis/citation/CBB203353902/)
Article
Joelle M Abi-Rached;
(2021)
ʿAṣfūriyyeh: A History of Madness, Modernity, and War in the Middle East
(/isis/citation/CBB150396997/)
Be the first to comment!