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UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Review from previous edition ...often manages splendidly vivid pictorial evocations ... a bold, imaginative and provocative study, with a range few other writers would dare."--Carolyne Larrington, Times Literary Supplement
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "The general effect is rather like that of reading through a first-class encyclopedia."--Nigel Barley, Times Higher Education Supplement
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Frighteningly literate and well-informed"--Roz Kaveney, Time Out
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation"--Steven Connor, The Independent
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "She is exquisitely alive not just to ideas and arguments, but also to the jag and whiff and tang of things"--Steven Connor, The Independent
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Phantasmagoria is a cabinet of familiar wonders: a jetting, generous, humane spree of thought, richly quickened by the life it finds within us and adroad, in our media a
Product Description
Phantasmagoria explores ideas of spirit and soul since the Enlightenment; it traces metaphors that have traditionally conveyed the presence of immaterial forces, and reveals how such pagan and Christian imagery about ethereal beings is embedded in a logic of the imagination, clothing spirits in the languages of air, clouds, light and shadow, glass, and ether itself. Moving from Wax to Film, the book discusses key questions of imagination and cognition, and probes the perceived distinctions between fantasy and deception; it uncovers a host of spirit forms -- angels, ghosts, fairies, revenants, and zombies -- that are still actively present in contemporary culture. It reveals how their transformations over time illuminate changing idea about the self. Phantasmagoria also tells the accompanying story about the means used to communicate such ideas, and relates how the new technologies of the Victorian era were applied to figuring the invisible and the impalpable, and how magic lanterns (the phantasmagoria shows themselves), radio, photography and then moving pictures spread ideas about spirit forces. As the story unfolds, the book features many eminent scientists and philosophers who applied their considerable energies to the question of other worlds and other states of mind: they staged trance séances in which mediums produced spirit phenomena, including ectoplasm. Phantasmagoria shows how this often surprising story connects with some of the important scientific discoveries of a fertile age, in psychology and physics, and continues to influence contemporary experience.
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First Sentence
Wax takes such an exact impression that it has heen used as a stamp of authenticity since the beginning of written documents; set to a personal sign in the form of a seal, or a thumbprint, or a hair, it hardens, and cannot be undone; it can only be broken, and then reveal tampering. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Wax takes such an exact impression that it has heen used as a stamp of authenticity since the beginning of written documents; set to a personal sign in the form of a seal, or a thumbprint, or a hair, it hardens, and cannot be undone; it can only be broken, and then reveal tampering. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Such a great book!
9 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I love this book. I first heard of it when I was in school. The intro chapter on wax alone is worth buying the book for. The section on fata morgana is pretty interesting too.
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