The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures

ISBN-13: 9781409444671 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 492 str.

Olu Jenzen;Sally R. Munt

Opis

Despite the much vaunted end of religion and the growth of secularism, people are engaging like never before in their own spiritualities of life . Across the West, paranormal belief is on the rise. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures brings together the work of international scholars across the social sciences and humanities to question how and why people are seeking meaning in the realm of the paranormal, a heretofore subjugated knowledge. With contributions from the UK and other European countries, the USA, Australia and Canada, this ground-breaking book attends to the paranormal as a position from which to critique dominant forms of knowledge production and spirituality. A rich exploration of everyday life practices, textual engagements and discourses relating to the paranormal, as well as the mediation, technology and art of paranormal activity, this book explores themes such as subcultures and mainstreaming, as well as epistemological, methodological, and phenomenological questions, and the role of the paranormal in social change. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures constitutes an essential resource for those interested in the academic study of cultural engagements with paranormality; it will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, popular culture, sociology, cultural geography, literature, film and music."

Spis treści

Contents: Introduction, Sally R. Munt; Part I Paranormal Epistemologies: Haunted culture: the persistence of belief in the paranormal, Christopher Partridge; The ghost in the machine: spirit and technology, John Harvey; Paranormal cultural practices, Annette Hill; Extraordinary experiences with UFOs, David Clarke; Ghosts in the body: infections, genes and the re-enchantment of biology, Robert Peckham; Sceptic culture: traditions of disbelief in New Mexico, William J. Dewan; ’Paranormal science’ from America to Italy: a case of cultural homogenization, Andrea Molle and Christopher D. Bader; Making sense of the paranormal: a Platonic context for research methods, Angela Voss; Everyday ghosts: a matter of believing in belonging, Abby Day; ’A giant bedsheet with the holes cut out’: expectations and discussions of the appearance of ghosts, Paul Cowdell; Interpreting death and the afterlife in US paranormal reality television programmes and online fan groups, Diane Dobry. Part II The Paranormal and Social Change: Wilhelm Reich and the Etheric Warriors, Sarah Jane Sloane; Other senses: the politics of mediumship, Esther Peeren; ’There’s something in my house’: television and the politics of then paranormal, Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi; Social realism and the paranormal in Scandinavian fiction, Olu Jenzen; Immersed in illusion, haunted by history: Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost Train, Josephine Machon; Ireland the anomalous state: paranormal cultures and the Irish literary and political revival, Wendy E. Cousins; Mexico’s La Ilustración Espirita: toward a transatlantic understanding of a spiritualist archive, María del Pilar Blanco; Visions of the paranormal: representations of psychic women and ghosts in television and film, Karin Beeler. Part III Paranormal Phenomenologies: The gizmo and the glitch: telepathy, ocular philosophy, and other extensions of sensation, Kristen Gallerneaux Brooks; Paranormal art history: psychometry and the afterlife of objects,

O autorze

Olu Jenzen is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Design and Media at the University of Brighton, UK. Sally R. Munt is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. She is author of Queer Attachments, editor of Cultural Studies and the Working Class and co-author of Queer Spiritual Spaces.