Performances of Spiritualism in the Nineteenth-Century United States

这本专着调查和解释的强大影响力的精神死者在十九世纪的美国文化。通过对各种表演降神会，恍惚讲座，宗教“剧院”，魔术灯笼表演和视觉文化的其他方面，如幻影，它揭示了这一时期的文化在多大程度上被其令人不安的过去所困扰-特别是被边缘化的个人，如妇女，印第安人和非洲裔美国人。它还将定位美国的唯心主义，在本世纪中叶大规模流行，在其跨国背景下，并检查它作为文化帝国主义的早期形式。

This monograph investigates and explains the powerful influence of the spirits of the dead within the nineteenth-century United States culture. Through a focus on varieties of performance-séances, trance lectures, religious 'theatre', magic lantern shows and other aspects of visual culture such as the phantasmagoria, it reveals the extent to which the culture of the period is haunted by its troubling past - especially by marginalised individuals such as women, Indians and African Americans. It will also locate United States spiritualism, massively popular in the mid-century period, within its transnational context and examine it as early form of cultural imperialism.