Literature, technology, and magical thinking, 1880-1920 / Pamela Thurschwell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thurschwell, Pamela, 1966- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 32.

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 32

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Magic in literature.

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

Literature and technology.

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

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Psychoanalysis and literature.

Homosexuality and literature.

Spiritualism in literature.

Occultism in literature.

Telepathy in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 194 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Literature, Technology & Magical Thinking, 1880-1920

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this 2001 book Pamela Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. Thurschwell argues that technologies began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on: they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Talking to the dead and talking on the phone both held out the promise of previously unimaginable contact between people: both seemed to involve 'magical thinking'. Thurschwell looks at the ways in which psychical research, the scientific study of the occult, is reflected in the writings of such authors as Henry James, George du Maurier and Oscar Wilde, and in the foundations of psychoanalysis. This study offers provocative interpretations of fin-de-siècle literary and scientific culture in relation to psychoanalysis, queer theory and cultural history.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Series-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; CHAPTER 1 The Society for Psychical Research's experiments in intimacy; CHAPTER 2 Wilde, hypnotic aesthetes and the 1890's; CHAPTER 3 Henry James's lives during wartime; CHAPTER 4 On the typewriter, In the Cage, at the Ouija board; CHAPTER 5 Freud, Ferenczi and psychoanalysis's telepathic transferences; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-190) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-12280-5

1-280-15936-7

0-511-11937-2

0-511-04146-2

0-511-15297-3

0-511-32773-0

0-511-48453-4

0-511-04765-7

OCLC:

475915840