Reading Questions

Angela Garcia

The Pastoral Clinic

Chapter 2

People, Places and Concepts

Alma

Relapse

Descanos

Melancholic subjectivity

Tierra Amarilla

Structure of feeling

Los Alamos National Laboratory

David

Joseph and Ricky

1. What does Alma’s life tell us about “melancholic subjectivity”? What does Alma mean when she says “Es que lo que tengo no termina” [It’s just that what I have has no end?], and how does this affect her life and how she views the future?

2. How have loss and melancholy shaped the Hispano community in Tierra Amarilla and the Hispañola Valley? How does Garcia believe these experiences relate to heroin use in the region?

3. Why does Alma respond to evangelicalism as a path forward in her struggle with addiction?

4. What is a “structure of feeling”? What do David, Joseph and Ricky’s lives tell us about the structure of feeling that Garcia describes in this chapter?