Ghosts of futures past : spiritualism and the cultural politics of nineteenth-century America
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Ghosts of futures past : spiritualism and the cultural politics of nineteenth-century America
University of California Press, c2008
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Note
"Simpson, imprint in humanities"--P. facing t.p
Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-260) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
"Ghosts of Futures Past" guides readers through the uncanny world of nineteenth-century American spiritualism. More than an occult parlor game, this was a new religion, which channeled the voices of the dead, linked present with past, and conjured new worldly and otherworldly futures. Tracing the persistence of magic in an emergent culture of secularism, Molly McGarry brings a once marginalized practice to the center of American cultural history. Spiritualism provided an alchemical combination of science and magic that called into question the very categories of male and female, material and immaterial, self and other, living and dead. Dissolving the boundaries between them opened Spiritualist practitioners to other voices and, in turn, allowed them to imagine new social worlds and forge diverse political affinities.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Mourning, Media, and the Cultural Politics of Conjuring the Dead 2. Indian Guides: Haunted Subjects and the Politics of Vanishing 3. Spectral Sexualities: Free Love, Moral Panic, and the Making of U.S. Obscenity Law 4. Mediomania: The Spirit of Science in a Culture of Belief and Doubt 5. Secular Spirits: A Queer Genealogy of Untimely Sexualities Notes Select Bibliography Index
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