Representations in Tension: Punitive Sensibilities and Modernization in a Transition Context. Córdoba 1855-1862

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the dimension of the penal sensitivities, it means the phenomena of the penalty causing by the emotions. This work features the impact on justice, punishment and guilty topics on extrajudicial actors, focusing the analysis between 1855 and 1862 years. A local newspaper “El Imparcial” is the main source for the investigations of such representations, published by the first time at 1855. By this mean, it is feasibly to notice about the first signs of punitive modernization tending toward “civilized” punishments, features which suggest how the new sensitivities influence the appraisals of torture, death penalty, and the corpse exhibition, among others. At that time, in a scenario considered immature even for radical changes, the minor vagaries sustained over time conceive the source of the future adjustment, completed into the eighties decade.