"Electricity and Seance Practice in the Case of Spiritualism" by Jeremy Stolow (Communication Studies, Concordia University)

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the rise of the new electrical technologies (such as the telegraph) and the modern Spiritualist movement in the nineteenth century. As a religious movement, Spiritualism addressed questions of supra-territoriality, disembodiment and automaticity, which in the nineteenth century were circumscribed by a fascination with electricity as a force containing mysterious, unexplored potentials. Electricity not only shaped the culture of technological innovation during this period, it also supplied the key metaphors for understanding the workings of gendered bodies, the mind, and the even the conditions of possibility of social life itself. By tracing the history of this ‘electric imaginary’, the paper explores how Spiritualism interacted with a range of scientific, technocratic, medical, religious and popular discourses, animating a deep cultural ambivalence concerning new technologies of electrically-mediated communication and labour. Particular attention will be devoted to the incorporation of electrical devices into seance practice, and the assumptions derived therefrom concerning the possibility of communication with the dead.

About the Author

Jeremy Stolow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He is also an Associate Member of the Centre de recherche sur l'intermedialité (Université de Montréal), and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Center for Religion and Media (New York University). His area of research is religion and media, including studies of contemporary Orthodox Jewish print culture and electricity and Spiritualism in the nineteenth century. Among his recent publications are: Orthodox By Design (University of California Press, forthcoming); "Salvation By Electricity," in Hent de Vries, ed. Religion: Beyond a Concept (Fordham University Press, 2008); "Religion and/as Media," Theory, Culture and Society, 22:4 (2005). For more information about Jeremy, visit his website: www.jeremystolow.com

Contact and Further Links

Contact Information: 
Department of Communication Studies
CJ 4.421, Concordia University
7141 rue Sherbrooke, ouest, Montréal, Québec, H4B 1R6
email: jeremy.stolow@concordia.ca

Links:  
http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/comm/faculty/stolow.html