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RLST183 HM - Ghosts and the Machines

Credit(s): 3

Instructor(s): Dyson

Description: An exploration of the interrelations between occult mediumship, modern media, and technology in Europe and the United States from the nineteenth-century through the present. The aim of the course is to explore how the Enlightenment and its offspring, modern technology, in their seemingly stark material and rational promises of progress, have never rid themselves fully of the paranormal and irrational. To explore the multiple relations between ghosts and the machines, topics for the course include: ghostly visions and magic lantern phatasmagoria; American spiritualism and the telegraph; phrenology and the rise of the archive; psychical research and stage magic; radio’s disembodied voices; spirit photography and light therapies; psychic television; and magic on film.

HSA Course Area(s): American Studies; Religious Studies; Science, Technology, & Society
HSA Writing Intensive: Yes