Date Thesis Awarded
4-2015
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Modern Languages
Advisor
Francie Cate-Arries
Committee Member
Jonathan Arries
Committee Member
David Aday
Abstract
This thesis examines Francoist medicalization, or the characterization of the Spanish Civil War in medical terms, as suggested by Spanish psychiatrist Dr. Antonio Vallejo Nágera. This work looks to address the function that medicine served for the Franco regime, and to justify the introduction of a directorship in psychiatry in the Nationalist camp as early as August of 1936. Through close textual analysis of three key publications by Vallejo Nágera, El factor emoción en la España nueva (1938), Política racial del nuevo estado (1938) and “Psiquismo del fanatismo marxista. Investigaciones psicológicas en marxistas femeninos delincuentes” (1939), this thesis traces the development of a Nationalist medical discourse and argues for its significance in writing of the enemy as psychiatrically degenerate, while advocating for and justifying the violent repression of the Republican opposition.
Recommended Citation
Pearlstein, Ethan F., "Antonio Vallejo Nágera and the Discourse of Eugenics in Francoist Spain" (2015). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 146.
https://publish.wm.edu/honorstheses/146
Included in
Modern Languages Commons, Other Psychiatry and Psychology Commons, Political History Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons, Psychiatry Commons, Spanish Literature Commons