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Dissertation
A medium’s media: spiritualism and women’s writing in the nineteenth century U.S.
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2024
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007411
Abstract
In the nineteenth century, spiritualism spread throughout the U.S.; the world of spirits was close at hand. The titular figures of spiritualism were its women mediums, who communicated with spirits of the dead. This project examines spiritualist mediums of another kind: spiritualist women who wrote about spirit communication, mediating religious knowledge and power. By examining how these women communicated through writing and material media, I argue that nineteenth century spiritualist mediums were at work not only on the stage, but in the pages of U.S. American literature.
Women mediums were perceived as pliant and easily influenced, reflecting broader cultural concerns about feminine vulnerability. Yet, many women practiced mediumship because it offered opportunities for public speaking, religious authority, and financial gain, implicitly threatening masculine domination of religious experience. I argue that spiritualist women writers, like “traditional” mediums, also challenged hierarchical, masculine religious structures. I build on previous research about spiritualism, literature, and media to demonstrate that women’s writing practice was an extension of their bodily experience. Focusing on the personal, autobiographical, and fiction writing of spiritualist women, I propose that women used gendered material media—including pens, planchettes, the senses, and sewing needles—to extend the boundaries of spiritualist practice. These material media were objects of spiritualist practice that reflected women’s bodily knowing. This project illustrates that women used spiritualism, material media, and writing to define themselves and their religious experiences. By crafting religious imaginaries that both critiqued and reinforced interlocking systems of oppression in the U.S., these women defined spiritualism as thoroughly as they defined themselves.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- A medium’s media: spiritualism and women’s writing in the nineteenth century U.S.
- Creators
- Kaitlyn Lindgren-Hansen
- Contributors
- Diana Cates (Advisor)Jenna Supp-Montgomerie (Committee Member)Kristy Nabhan-Warren (Committee Member)Naomi Greyser (Committee Member)Bluford Adams (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Religious Studies
- Date degree season
- Spring 2024
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007411
- Number of pages
- x, 195 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2024 Kaitlyn Lindgren-Hansen
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 04/10/2024
- Description illustrations
- illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-195).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- My dissertation considers the relationship between the nineteenth century U.S. spiritualist movement, women’s writing, and material media. Spiritualist mediums, many of whom were women, claimed to be able to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Yet, not all spiritualists worked as mediums. I claim in this dissertation that several nineteenth century women writers— Emma Hardinge Britten, Kate Field, Elizabeth Stoddard, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith, and Elizabeth Keckley—used spiritualist concepts to articulate their embodied experiences. This project examines the multiple forms of writing, from historical accounts to fiction, through which these authors communicated. Written from 1850-1880, the materials I examine show how women negotiated the contours of the spiritualist movement during the height of its popularity. In order to survey how spiritualist women’s writing operated as a site of embodied religious theorizing, I also examine the material media that these authors took up. Writing and communication media were incredibly influential on the spiritualist movement as markers of progress and potential. I argue that, as a movement inspired by innovations in mediation, it is necessary to consider not just what spiritualist women were writing, but also the media that they used to communicate. Therefore, I show how both conventional and unconventional material media (such as pens, planchettes, the five senses, and sewing needles) appear in these authors’ writings as powerful objects, as literary metaphors, and as bridges between the living and the dead.
- Academic Unit
- Religious Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984647356102771
Metrics
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