Hello everyone in UI 453!
I want to begin by introducing my research question:
“What roles did mediums and séances play in early
American Spiritualism?”
For my research I really wanted to have a topic that I
would enjoy. I have always had a morbid fascination with the afterlife, ghosts
and the paranormal. It was hard for me to narrow either of those down to a
manageable research topic. I began my research even before I had a research
question. I didn't know which avenue to take in regards to communication with
the dead or the afterlife and ghosts. I flipped back and forth from doing
cemetery art on tombstones to the Egyptian belief in the afterlife. All of which
I felt to be somewhat broad for this class. With the help of a fellow classmate
I was the phenomena of American Spiritualism was brought to my attention. I
immediately jumped at the chance to do a research assignment on this topic.
After all it combined a lot of my interests. I wasn't too sure on how to narrow
down the topic still so I sent in two research questions to Dr. Hosselkus. I
was unsure if I wanted to research American Spiritualism in general or the role
of mediums and séances so Dr. Hosselkus recommended that I combine the two a
brilliant idea!
It has been argued in texts throughout the ages that
mediums and séances are just a hoax. Séances and mediums are just criminals who
fake supernatural powers to rob the innocent. Through my research I want to
look at the psychological, economical as well as other effects of séances and
mediums. I am really striving to search for some sort of truth. With my deep
belief in communicating with the dead I want to find, at least for myself, that
there is some fabric of truth to mediums, clairvoyants and those like them. I
am not saying that I do not realize that there are scammers out there I just
hope to find some evidence to the contrary.
Spiritualism and séances were extremely popular in the
early American time period. I found evidence of this in Spiritualism in Antebellum America by Bret E. Carroll and in The Heyday of Spiritualism by Slater
Brown. These are just two of the text from Kent Library that I plan on using
for my research. Just from browsing these two texts I can already tell just how
influential séances and mediums were to the early American people. Some
arguments are that is was the break in the Catholic Church that sparked this
revolution while others aren’t so sure.
After I had my research question finalized I began to
look for resources. I actually have started to print off articles that I used
to help me choose the topic of spiritualism. I have five articles thus far that
I am planning on starting to go over to see the role that mediums and séances
played in each. The articles I have chosen thus far are Enchanted Spaces: The Séance, Affect, and Geographies of Religion by
Julian Holloway, Spiritualism and a
Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence by Peter Lamont, Spiritualism and Crime by Blewett Lee, Early Investigations in Spiritualism by John Townsend Trowbridge
and The Spiritualist Medium: A Study of
Female Professionalism in Victorian America by R. Laurence Moore. I also
have a few books in mind that I am going to read over as well. I am extremely
cautious about using internet sources for papers. All of my life it has been
drilled in my head to not use the internet because anyone can alter the
information that is presented.
I have
also attached a website that has some interesting pictures of séances and short
stories attached to them. I have not backed up the information presented with
more reliable sources but I just wanted to give people the opportunity to put
an image in their heads towards my research question. Plus who doesn’t love
looking at vintage photos!
Resources
Enchanted
Spaces: The Séance, Affect, and Geographies of Religion by
Julian Holloway http://www.jstor.org/stable/3694153.
Accessed 09/10/2013
Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of
Evidence by Peter Lamont http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091661.
Accessed 09/10/2013
Early
Investigations in Spiritualism by John Townsend Trowbridge http://www.jstor.org/stable/25106220.
Accessed 09/10/2013
Spiritualism
and Crime by Blewett Lee http://jstor.org/stable/1112490.
Accessed 09/10/2013
The
Spiritualist Medium: A Study of Female Professionalism in Victorian America by
R. Laurence Moore http://jstor.org/stable/2712342.
Accessed 9/11/2013
Great start to the blog. Excellent selection of scholarly articles to get you into your topic. You're right to be skeptical of internet sources. By and large, you are more likely to find credible information in scholarly journals. However, you can find decent information on the internet too, provided you pay close attention to the author of any given site. That said, I would include a caveat with the Youtube video above, indicating that you acknowledge that it expresses the thoughts, understandings, and opinions of one person, who doesn't necessarily have any expertise in your topic. In other words, you can incorporate any information that you like into your blog, but educate your reader by differentiating from sources that are clearly credible and those that are largely opinion-based or reflect personal understandings of your topic. Lastly, try to fix the link to the JSTOR article in the second post. Oh, and catch that typo in your blog subtitle!
ReplyDeleteDr. H.