Altered States : Sex, Nation, Drugs, and Self-Transformation in Victorian Spiritualism (Suny series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century)

Tromp, Marlene

State University of New York Press（2007/06発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 260 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780791467404
• DDC分類 133.9

Full Description

Considers the role of Spiritualism in Victorian culture.

Altered States examines the rise of Spiritualism-the religion of séances, mediums, and ghostly encounters-in the Victorian period and the role it played in undermining both traditional female roles and the rhetoric of imperialism. Focusing on a particular kind of séance event-the full-form materialization-and the bodies of the young, female mediums who performed it, Marlene Tromp argues that in the altered state of the séance new ways of understanding identity and relationships became possible. This not only demonstrably shaped the thinking of the Spiritualists, but also the popular consciousness of the period. In diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, scientific reports, and popular fiction, Tromp uncovers evidence that the radical views presented in the faith permeated and influenced mainstream Victorian thought.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments


Introduction: Performing Readings


Part I: Spirit Made Flesh


1. Spirited Sexuality: Sex, Marriage, and Victorian Spiritualism


2. Wedding Stories/Ghost Stories


Part II: Ghosts of Home


3. Ghostly Erotics and Imperialism in the Victorian Drawing Room


4. Economics, Race, and the Specter of Class


5. Drunk with Power: Stories of Ghostly Others


Part II: Transforming the Self


6. Under the Influence: The Fox Sisters and Pernicious Spirits


7. Haunted by Doubts: Elizabeth d'Espérance, Social Justice, and the Reconfiguration of Mediumship


Notes
Bibliography
Index