Book ID: CBB001252918

Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritualist Writing, 1848--1930 (2012)

unapi

Ferguson, Christine C. (Author)


Edinburgh University Press


Publication Date: 2012
Physical Details: x + 230 pp.; bibl.; index
Language: English

Studying transatlantic spiritualist literature from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, Christine Ferguson focuses on its incorporation and dissemination of bio-determinist and eugenic thought. She asks why ideas about rational reproduction, hereditary determinism and race improvement became so important to spiritualist novelists, journalists and biographers in this period. She also examines how these concerns drove emerging Spiritualist understandings of disability, intelligence, crime, conception, the afterlife and aesthetic production. The book draws on rare material, including articles and serialized fiction from Spiritualist periodicals such as Light, The Two Worlds and The Medium and Daybreak as well as on Spiritualist healing, parentage and sex manuals.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001252918/

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Authors & Contributors
Blatt, Jessica
McCoskey, Denise Eileen
Leporiere, Lorenzo
Nichols, Rachael L.
Wray, Matt
Sharp, Patrick B.
Concepts
Science and race
Eugenics
Spiritualism
Occult sciences
Science and literature
Evolution
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
Progressive Era (1890s-1920s)
18th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
South America
France
Europe
Canada
Institutions
Social Science Research Council
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