Invisible hosts : performing the nineteenth-century spirit medium's autobiography / Elizabeth Schleber Lowry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lowry, Elizabeth Schleber, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Women and spiritualism.

Women mediums--United States--History--19th century.

Women mediums.

Sex role--United States--History--19th century.

Sex role.

History.

United States.

Autobiography.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 157 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017]

Summary:

Invisible Hosts explores how the central tenets of Spiritualism influenced ways in which women conceived of their bodies and their civic responsibilities, arguing that Spiritualist ideologies helped to lay the foundation for the social and political advances made by women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As public figures, female spirit mediums of the Victorian era were often accused of unfeminine (and therefore transgressive) behavior. A rhetorical analysis of nineteenth-century spirit mediums' autobiographies reveals how these women convinced readers of their authenticity both as respectable women and as psychics. The author argues that these women's autobiographies reflect an attempt to emulate feminine virtues even as their interpretation and performance of these virtues helped to transform prevailing gender stereotypes. She demonstrates that the social performance central to the production of women's autobiography is uniquely complicated by Spiritualist ideology. Such complications reveal new information about how women represented themselves, gained agency, and renegotiated nineteenth-century gender roles. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Something in a Stranger's Experience: Evangelical and Spiritualist Women's Autobiography 1

Chapter 2 Intoxicating Notoriety: Why Mediums Couldn't Quite Be "True" Women 17

Chapter 3 The Great Master Medium: Spiritualism, Casuistry, and Christian Discourse 27

Chapter 4 Home Sweet Home: Constructions of Domesticity, Embodiment, and the Public Sphere 45

Chapter 5 Pure Intentions and Filthy Lucre: Relationality and the Rhetorical Implications of Endorsement and Patronage 63

Chapter 6 Deep Trance: Corporeality, Dualism, and Submission 83

Chapter 7 Indecorous Indecorum: Prophetic Women, Travel Writing, and the Politics of Virtue 103.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Lowry, Elizabeth Schleber, 1972- author. Invisible hosts

ISBN:

9781438465999

1438465998

OCLC:

987716738