Supernatural Entertainments
Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Supernatural Entertainments
Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture
About this book
In Supernatural Entertainments, Simone Natale vividly depicts spiritualism's rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon and explores its strong connection to the growth of the media entertainment industry in the nineteenth century. He frames the spiritualist movement as part of a new commodity culture that changed how public entertainments were produced and consumed.
Starting with the story of the Fox sisters, considered the first spiritualist mediums in history, Natale follows the trajectory of spiritualism in Great Britain and the United States from its foundation in 1848 to the beginning of the twentieth century. He demonstrates that spiritualist mediums and leaders adopted many of the promotional strategies and spectacular techniques that were being developed for the broader entertainment industry. Spiritualist mediums were indistinguishable from other professional performers, as they had managers and agents, advertised in the press, and used spectacularism to draw audiences.
Addressing the overlap between spiritualism's explosion and nineteenth-century show business, Natale provides an archaeology of how the supernatural became a powerful force in the media and popular culture of today.
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Information
Table of contents
- COVER Front
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I: Configurations of Seances
- Chapter 1: The Medium on the Stage: Theatricality and Performance in the Spirit SĆ©ance
- Chapter 2: Parlor Games: Play and Social Life in the Haunted House
- PART II: How to Sell a Spirit
- Chapter 3: Controversy, Sensation, and the Popular Press
- Chapter 4: Mediums and Stars: Religion, Consumerism, and Celebrity Culture
- PART III: Spirit and Matter
- Chapter 5: Stranger than Fiction: Print Media, Automatic Writing, and Popular Culture
- Chapter 6: The MArvels of Superimposition: Spirit Photography and Spiritualismās Visual Culture
- Afterword
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- COVER Back