Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritualist Writing, 1848-1930

Citation

Ferguson C (2012) Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritualist Writing, 1848-1930. Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-determined-spirits.html

Abstract
Studying transatlantic spiritualist literature from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, Christine Ferguson focuses on its incorporation and dissemination of bio-determinist and eugenic thought. She asks why ideas about rational reproduction, hereditary determinism and race improvement became so important to spiritualist novelists, journalists and biographers in this period. She also examines how these concerns drove emerging Spiritualist understandings of disability, intelligence, crime, conception, the afterlife and aesthetic production. The book draws on rare material, including articles and serialized fiction from Spiritualist periodicals such asLight,The Two WorldsandThe Medium and Daybreakas well as on Spiritualist healing, parentage and sex manuals.

People

Professor Christine Ferguson

Professor in English, English Studies