Ferguson, C. (2012) Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity, and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritualist Writing, 1848-1930. Series: Edinburgh critical studies in Victorian culture. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. ISBN 9780748639656
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Publisher's URL: http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748639656
Abstract
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.
| Item Type: | Books |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Spiritualism, eugenics, nineteenth-century literature, mental disability, criminal anthropology, naturalism, sex magic |
| Status: | Published |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Ferguson, Dr Christine |
| Authors: | Ferguson, C. |
| College/School: | College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature |
| Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press |
| ISBN: | 9780748639656 |
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