Determined spirits : eugenics, heredity and racial regeneration in Anglo-American spiritualist writing, 1848-1930 / Christine Ferguson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ferguson, Christine.

Series:

Edinburgh critical studies in Victorian culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and spiritualism--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and spiritualism.

Literature and spiritualism--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Literature and spiritualism--United States--History--19th century.

Literature and spiritualism--United States--History--20th century.

Spiritualism--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Spiritualism.

Spiritualism--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Spiritualism--United States--History--19th century.

Spiritualism--United States--History--20th century.

History.

United States.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

x, 230 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Drawing on provocative research, volumes in the series provide timely revisions of the nineteenth-century's literature and culture. Examines the Spiritualist movement's role in disseminating eugenic and hard hereditarian thought, Studying transatlantic spiritualist literature from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Christine Ferguson focuses on the incorporation and dissemination of bio-determinist and eugenic thought. The book draws on rare material, including articles and serialised fiction from Spiritualist periodicals such as Light, The Two Worlds and The Medium and Daybreak as well as on Spiritualist healing, parentage and sex manuals. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Radical Determinism and the Natural History of the Medium 21

2 Spirits in Mind: Madness, Idiocy and the Cultural Capital of Ignorance 58

3 Eugenic Summerlands: Sexual Reproduction and Family Engineering in the Spheres 86

4 Blended Souls: Paschal Beverly Randolph and Occult Miscegenation 114

5 Criminal Man and Recidivist Spirit: Spiritualism, Criminal Anthropology and Thanato-Rehabilitationism 142

6 Dead Letters: Bioaesthetics and the New Realism in Fin-de-Siècle Spiritualism 172.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [204]-219) and index.

ISBN:

9780748639656

0748639659

9780748650668

0748650660

9780748650682

0748650687

9780748650675

0748650679

OCLC:

790555604