Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Marina Warner (Writer and Critic; Professor of Literature, University of Essex)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 3.70cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.001kg
ISBN:  

9780199239238

ISBN 10:   0199239231
Pages:   496
Publication Date:   13 March 2008
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Prologue Introduction: The Logic of the Imaginary I. Wax 1: Living Likenesses, Death Masks 2: Anatomies and Heroes: Madame Tussaud's 3: On the Threshold: Sleeping Beauties II. Air 4: The Breath of Life 5: Winged Spirits and Sweet Airs III. Clouds 6: Clouds of Glory 7: Fata Morgana 8: Very Like a Whale . . . IV. Light 9: The Eye of the Imagination 10: Fancy's Images; Insubstantial Pageants V. Shadow 11: Phantasmagoria or, Darkness Visible 12: The Origin of Painting or, the Corinthian Maid VI. Mirror 13: The Danger in the Mirror: Narcissus 14: Double Vision 15: The Camera Steals the Soul VII. Ghost 16: 'Stay This Moment': Julia Margaret Cameron and Charles Dodgson 17: Spectral Rappers, Psychic Photographers 18: Phantoms to the Test: The Society for Psychical Research VIII. Ether 19: Soul Vibrations or, The Fluidic Invisible 20: Time Travel and Other Selves 21: Exotic Visitors, Multiple Lives 22: Touching the Unknown IX. Ectoplasm 23: Materializing Mediums: The Quest for Ectoplasm 24: The Rorschach Test, or Dirty Pictures X. Film 25: Nice Life, an Extra's 26: Disembodied Eyes: The Culture of Apocalypse 27: Our Zombies, Our Selves Conclusion

Reviews

<br> Warner's shrewd juxtapositions of materials from widely separated historical moments create a fertile context within which to account for the impact of contemporary art forms, from painting and poetry to installation and video. She has a remarkable capacity for sifting and arranging her work so<br>that even an unreconstructedly rationalist reader is drawn irresistibly into a web of allusions and emotions, offering a kind of connective tissue to the material phenomena we feel we can grasp. -- Financial Times<br> Marina Warner is one of our most erudite and morally serious writers.... Phantasmagoria is her most ambitious book, an intellectually dazzling struggle with how the modern world (beginning roughly in the Renaissance) has imagined the stuff of souls, the nature of the psyche, the 'mysterious, <br>elusive, and ethereal' thing that somehow distinguishes the truly dead from the living and makes us who we are. --Thomas Laqueur, The Nation<br> A fascinating study of the metamorphic vision. -Elizabeth Helsinger, Studies in English Literature<br> This book is a powerful statement of the centrality of imagination, a humane and engaging work, if a solemn one. Sometimes the reader, like a prince in a fairytale, needs a stout heart to hack at the thorny growth of a Warner sentence; but usually there is, if not a princess in the thicket, the<br>prospect of a pearl worth the price. -- Guardian<br>

<br>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<br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: The general effect is rather like that of reading through a first-class encyclopedia. --Nigel Barley, Times Higher Education Supplement<br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Frighteningly literate and well-informed --Roz Kaveney, Time Out<br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation --Steven Connor, The Independent<br>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<br>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 and machineries

<br>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<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: The general effect is rather like that of reading through a first-class encyclopedia. --Nigel Barley, Times Higher Education Supplement<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Frighteningly literate and well-informed --Roz Kaveney, Time Out<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation --Steven Connor, The Independent<p><br>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<p><br>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

<br>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<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: The general effect is rather like that of reading through a first-class encyclopedia. --Nigel Barley, Times Higher Education Supplement<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Frighteningly literate and well-informed --Roz Kaveney, Time Out<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation --Steven Connor, The Independent<p><br>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<p><br>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 and machineries of mind. --Steven Connor, The Independent<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: As always Warner's scholarship, eclecticism and inventiveness dazzle. --Bel Mooney, The Times<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: It is a book of wonders. --Hilary Mantel, The Guardian<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Phantasmagoria is a fascinating history of spirited bodies and haunted machines, but a reminder too of why the metaphors still get under our skin --Brian Dillon, Daily Telegraph<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: This book's enquiries are wide-ranging, pertinent and up-to- date. All Marina Warner's material is freshly and enticingly presented. --The Guardian, Hilary Mantel<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: This book is a powerful statement. --Hilary Mantel, The Guardian<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation. --Stephen Connor, The Independent<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: A densely layered book --Mike Dash, Sunday Telegraph<p><br>UNEDITED UK REVIEW: She is exq

Author Information

Marina Warner has written extensively on mythology and fairy tales. Her novels and works of criticism have won her the Fawcett Prize, a Booker Prize nomination, the Rosemary Crawshay Prize, and a Commonwealth Writer's Prize. Internationally she has been created Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French, Commendatore by the Italians, and was awarded the Warburg Prize in Germany. In addition to being Professor of Literature at the University of Essex, she is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at St Andrews University. In 2005 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

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