Invisible Hosts (eBook)

Performing the Nineteenth-Century Spirit Medium's Autobiography

Elizabeth Schleber Lowry (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
186 Seiten
State University of New York Press (Verlag)
978-1-4384-6601-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Finalist for the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Religion categoryInvisible 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.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.8.2017
• Zusatzinfo: Total Illustrations: 0
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
• ISBN-10: 1-4384-6601-3 / 1438466013
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4384-6601-9 / 9781438466019