Full Description
Despite the much vaunted 'end of religion' and the growth of secularism, people are engaging like never before in their own 'spiritualities of life'. Across the West, paranormal belief is on the rise. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures brings together the work of international scholars across the social sciences and humanities to question how and why people are seeking meaning in the realm of the paranormal, a heretofore subjugated knowledge. With contributions from the UK and other European countries, the USA, Australia and Canada, this ground-breaking book attends to the paranormal as a position from which to critique dominant forms of knowledge production and spirituality. A rich exploration of everyday life practices, textual engagements and discourses relating to the paranormal, as well as the mediation, technology and art of paranormal activity, this book explores themes such as subcultures and mainstreaming, as well as epistemological, methodological, and phenomenological questions, and the role of the paranormal in social change. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures constitutes an essential resource for those interested in the academic study of cultural engagements with paranormality; it will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, popular culture, sociology, cultural geography, literature, film and music.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction (Sally R. Munt)
Part I Paranormal Epistemologies
1. Haunted Culture: The Persistence of Belief in the Paranormal (Christopher Partridge)
2. The Ghost in the Machine: Spirit and Technology (John Harvey)
3. Paranormal Cultural Practices (Annette Hill)
4. Extraordinary Experiences with UFOs (David Clarke)
5. Ghosts in the Body: Infections, Genes, and the Re-enchantment of Biology (Robert Peckham)
6. Sceptic Culture: Traditions of Disbelief in New Mexico (William J. Dewan)
7. 'Paranormal Science' from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenisation (Andrea Molle and Christopher D. Bader)
8. Making Sense of the Paranormal: A Platonic Context for Research Methods (Angela Voss)
9. Everyday Ghosts: A Matter of Believing in Belonging (Abby Day)
10. 'A Giant Bedsheet with the Holes Cut Out': Expectations and Discussions of the Appearance of Ghosts (Paul Cowdell)
11. Interpreting Death and the Afterlife in US Paranormal Reality Television Programmes and Online Fan Groups (Diane Dobry)
Part II The Paranormal and Social Change
12. Wilhelm Reich and the Etheric Warriors (Sarah Jane Sloane)
13. Other Senses: The Politics of Mediumship (Esther Peeren)
14. 'There's Something in My House': Television and the Politics of the Paranormal (Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi)
15. Social Realism and the Paranormal in Scandinavian Fiction (Olu Jenzen)
16. Immersed in Illusion, Haunted by History: Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train (Josephine Machon)
17. Ireland the Anomalous State: Paranormal Cultures and the Irish Literary and Political Revival
(Wendy E. Cousins)
18. Mexico's La Ilustración Espírita: Towards a Transatlantic Understanding of a Spiritualist Archive
(María del Pilar Blanco)
19. Visions of the Paranormal: Representations of Psychic Women and Ghosts in Television and Film (Karin Beeler)
Part III Paranormal Phenomenologies
20. The Gizmo and the Glitch: Telepathy, Ocular Philosophy, and other Extensions of Sensation
(Kristen Gallerneaux Brooks)
21. Paranormal Art History: Psychometry and the Afterlife of Objects, a Canadian Case Study
(Jennifer Fisher)
22. Music and the Paranormal (Melvyn J. Willin)
23. Conjuring the Spirits: Suggestion, Magic, and the Cognitive Approach to Performance Creation (Jon Armstrong)
24. Trance, Transfiguration and Trust: Spiritualism in Western Australia (Janet Baldwin)
25. A Phenomenology of the Ghosthunting Scene in the USA and in Germany (Gerhard Mayer)
26. The GHost Project: Manifesting Ghosts through Visual Art and Creative Research (Sarah Sparkes)
27. The Monsters of Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes: The Haunting of East London's Lower Lea Valley by Prehistoric Ghosts (Gareth E. Rees)
28. A Short Bestiary of Creatures from the Web (Line Henriksen)
Bibliography
Index
