Body and soul : a sympathetic history of American spiritualism /
"In Body and Soul, Robert S. Cox shows how Spiritualism sought to transform sympathy into social practice, arguing that each individual, living and dead, was poised within a nexus of affect, and through the active propagation of these sympathetic bonds, a new and coherent society would emerge....
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Charlottesville :
University of Virginia Press,
©2003.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to this title online (unlimited users allowed) |
| Summary: | "In Body and Soul, Robert S. Cox shows how Spiritualism sought to transform sympathy into social practice, arguing that each individual, living and dead, was poised within a nexus of affect, and through the active propagation of these sympathetic bonds, a new and coherent society would emerge. Phenomena such as spontaneous somnambulism and sympathetic communion with the dead - whether through seance or "spirit photography"--Were ways of transcending the barriers dissecting the American body politic, including the ultimate barrier, death Drawing equally upon social, occult, and physiological registers, Spiritualism created a unique "social physiology" in which mind was integrated into body and body into society, leading Spiritualists into earthly social reforms, such as women's rights and the crusade against slavery." "From the beginning, however, Spiritualist political and social expression was far more diverse than has previously been recognized, encompassing distinctive proslavery and antiegalitarian strains, and in the wake of racial and political adjustments following the Civil War, the movement began to fracture. Cox traces the eventual dissolution of Spiritualism through the contradictions of its various regional and racial factions and through their increasingly circumscribed responses to a changing world. In the end, he concludes, the history of Spiritualism was written in the limits of sympathy, and not its limitless potential."--Jacket |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (viii, 286 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-282) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780813923901 0813923905 |