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Seers, Witches and Psychics on Screen

An Analysis of Women Visionary Characters in Recent Television and Film

Karin Beeler author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc

Published:31st Oct '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Seers, Witches and Psychics on Screen cover

This book addresses the pervasive representation of women with unique visionary abilities in postfeminist television series and films from the 1990s to the present. These women mediate between the living and the dead or between different worlds of experience, redefining what it means to be "normal" and challenging the traditional boundary between science and the inner world of visionary, mystical experience.

Part 1 includes a discussion of modern-day Cassandra figures, including the witches and other "seers" of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Charmed, Hex, and Tru Calling. Part 2 discusses modern television shows whose main characters represent a contemporary spin on Joan of Arc, including Joan of Arcadia and the short-lived Wonderfalls. Finally, Part 3 investigates female mediums and other "psychic detectives" in reality television series such as Psychic Investigators and Rescue Mediums; the popular television dramas Medium, Ghost Whisperer, and Afterlife; and contemporary films such as Ghost, The Gift, and Premonition.

“accessible and readable for researchers and undergraduates alike”—Critical Studies in Television.

ISBN: 9780786433469

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 11mm

Weight: 295g

219 pages