Description

Book Synopsis
In this 2001 book Pamela Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siÃcle. Thurschwell argues that technologies began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on: they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Talking to the dead and talking on the phone both held out the promise of previously unimaginable contact between people: both seemed to involve 'magical thinking'. Thurschwell looks at the ways in which psychical research, the scientific study of the occult, is reflected in the writings of such authors as Henry James, George du Maurier and Oscar Wilde, and in the foundations of psychoanalysis. This study offers provocative interpretations of fin-de-siÃcle literary and scientific culture in relation to psychoanalysis, queer theory and cultural history.

Trade Review
"Thurschwell has written an original, important exploration..." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920

Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Severing the wire: the Society for Psychical Research's experiments in intimacy; 2. New forms of outrage: hypnotic aesthetes and the 1890s; 3. 'That Imperial stomach is no seat for ladies': James's wars, James's ghosts; 4. Henry James and Theodora Bosanquet: on the typewriter, in the cage, at the Ouija board; 5. Psychoanalysis's dangerous proximities: telepathy, psychosis and the real event; Bibliography.

Lit Technolgy Magic Think 18801920 32 Cambridge Studies in NineteenthCentury Literature and Culture Series Number 32

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    A Paperback by Pamela Thurschwell

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      View other formats and editions of Lit Technolgy Magic Think 18801920 32 Cambridge Studies in NineteenthCentury Literature and Culture Series Number 32 by Pamela Thurschwell

      Publisher: Cambridge University Press
      Publication Date: 11/10/2005 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780521022439, 978-0521022439
      ISBN10: 0521022436
      Also in:
      Literary studies: general

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      In this 2001 book Pamela Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siÃcle. Thurschwell argues that technologies began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on: they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Talking to the dead and talking on the phone both held out the promise of previously unimaginable contact between people: both seemed to involve 'magical thinking'. Thurschwell looks at the ways in which psychical research, the scientific study of the occult, is reflected in the writings of such authors as Henry James, George du Maurier and Oscar Wilde, and in the foundations of psychoanalysis. This study offers provocative interpretations of fin-de-siÃcle literary and scientific culture in relation to psychoanalysis, queer theory and cultural history.

      Trade Review
      "Thurschwell has written an original, important exploration..." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920

      Table of Contents
      Introduction; 1. Severing the wire: the Society for Psychical Research's experiments in intimacy; 2. New forms of outrage: hypnotic aesthetes and the 1890s; 3. 'That Imperial stomach is no seat for ladies': James's wars, James's ghosts; 4. Henry James and Theodora Bosanquet: on the typewriter, in the cage, at the Ouija board; 5. Psychoanalysis's dangerous proximities: telepathy, psychosis and the real event; Bibliography.

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