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Joseph Pierce writes "Jorge Salessi’s 1995 book 'Medicos maleantes y maricas' is a pioneering work [...], showing how Foucaldian historicism could be applied to a Latin American context. Using a heterogeneous archive including police... more
Joseph Pierce writes "Jorge Salessi’s 1995 book 'Medicos maleantes y maricas' is a pioneering work [...], showing how Foucaldian historicism could be applied to a Latin American context. Using a heterogeneous archive including police records, hygienic essays, legal documents and autobiographical writing, he demonstrates how the modern Argentine nation was constituted through the disciplinary effects of legal and medical discourses that determined who was considered normal, healthy and desirable, on the one hand, and who was degenerate, pathological, and therefore undesirable, on the other. In short, his work shows how the normative criollo model of sexuality and gender performance was defined in contrast with the taxonomy of deviants at the turn of the century: invertidos, homosexuales, maricones, uranistas, among others [Jewish and Italian immigrants, labor leaders etc.], who for their aberrant sexualities [politics or ideologies] were seen as harmful to the future of the modern Argentine nation.

Gabriela Nouzeilles explica que "En Médicos maleantes y maricas, Jorge Salessi defiende la hipótesis de que, en el caso argentino, la práctica y el discurso médicos fueron los promotores fundamentales de la construccion de la nación moderna y de sus tradiciones hegemonicas de identidad. Desde la perspectiva médica, la igualdad de los miembros ideales de la comunidad nacional constituia el objetivo central de un trabajo de regulación disciplinarian de la población, fijado en la aplicacion institucionalizada de políticas específicas del cuerpo y la interiorización de tecnologías del Yo y su sexualidad […] A traves de un conjunto variado de materiales primarios (reglamentos sanitarios, informes policiales, casos y ensayos médicos, cartas, diarios, fotografías, relatos literarios), Salessi propone al lector modos estrategicos de contar y leer la historia difusa del discurso medicalizado de la nacionalidad argentina desde 1871 a 1914 […] Puesto que la práctica médica trascendía el ámbito de la producción textual, las formas de institucionalización de la observación y vigilancia médicas (escuelas de medicina, cuarentenas, centros de observación penitenciarios, morgues, etc.), y los principios de legitimación de la autoridad profesional son tambien facetas importantes del análisis".
Research Interests:
... y transforma a Buenos Aires en la "Par?s del Plata". Susan Buck-Morss en su estudio del "Passagen-Werk": de Walter Ben ... 14. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectic of Seeing ? Walter Benjamin and the A rcades Pro yect,... more
... y transforma a Buenos Aires en la "Par?s del Plata". Susan Buck-Morss en su estudio del "Passagen-Werk": de Walter Ben ... 14. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectic of Seeing ? Walter Benjamin and the A rcades Pro yect, Cambridge ? Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989, pp. 89-90. ...
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia... more
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia Molloy, and Nicolas Shumway for their help with the ...
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia... more
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia Molloy, and Nicolas Shumway for their help with the ...
El discurso argentino de la sexualidad emerge y circula dejando un sedimento de im?genes y construcciones textuales y sexuales que empiezo a explorar en este art?culo. Tomando como punto de partida algunas de las premisas expuestas por... more
El discurso argentino de la sexualidad emerge y circula dejando un sedimento de im?genes y construcciones textuales y sexuales que empiezo a explorar en este art?culo. Tomando como punto de partida algunas de las premisas expuestas por Michel Foucault en su Historia de la sexuali dad, sugiero que en la Argentina de fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX emerge y se multiplica una pr?ctica discursiva que ?adem?s de realizar la "incorporaci?n de las perversiones y una nueva especificaci?n de los individuos"1? es la "ciencia hecha de fintas" (p. 67) que la estra tegia del poder utiliza para nombrar, definir y controlar los nuevos gru pos culturales y sociales que amenazan las prerrogativas tradicionales de la clase patricia hegem?nica. Foucault explica que entre los siglos XVIII y XIX el discurso sobre el sexo prolif?ra a partir de distintos focos que lo multiplican e insertan en sistemas de utilidad p?blica, "el sexo llega a ser asunto de "polic?a&...
In Negotiating Performance , major scholars and practitioners of the theatrical arts consider the diversity of Latin American and U. S. Latino performance: indigenous theater, performance art, living installations, carnival, public... more
In Negotiating Performance , major scholars and practitioners of the theatrical arts consider the diversity of Latin American and U. S. Latino performance: indigenous theater, performance art, living installations, carnival, public demonstrations, and gender acts such as transvestism. By redefining performance to include such events as Mayan and AIDS theater, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and Argentinean drag culture, this energetic volume discusses the dynamics of Latino/a identity politics and the sometimes discordant intersection of gender, sexuality, and nationalisms. The Latin/o America examined here stretches from Patagonia to New York City, bridging the political and geographical divides between U.S. Latinos and Latin Americans. Moving from Nuyorican casitas in the South Bronx, to subversive street performances in Buenos Aires, to border art from San Diego/Tijuana, this volume negotiates the borders that bring Americans together and keep them apart, while at the same time...
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia... more
... 2See George Chauncey, Jr., "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall ... I wish to thank Elizabeth Sayre, Patrick O'Conner, Sylvia Molloy, and Nicolas Shumway for their help with the ...
... y transforma a Buenos Aires en la "Par?s del Plata". Susan Buck-Morss en su estudio del "Passagen-Werk": de Walter Ben ... 14. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectic of Seeing ? Walter Benjamin and the A rcades Pro yect,... more
... y transforma a Buenos Aires en la "Par?s del Plata". Susan Buck-Morss en su estudio del "Passagen-Werk": de Walter Ben ... 14. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectic of Seeing ? Walter Benjamin and the A rcades Pro yect, Cambridge ? Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989, pp. 89-90. ...