The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures

Sally R Munt editor Olu Jenzen editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Inc

Published:15th Nov '17

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

This paperback is available in another edition too:

The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures cover

Despite the much vaunted ’end of religion’ and the growth of secularism, people are engaging like never before in their own ’spiritualities of life’. Across the West, paranormal belief is on the rise. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures brings together the work of international scholars across the social sciences and humanities to question how and why people are seeking meaning in the realm of the paranormal, a heretofore subjugated knowledge. With contributions from the UK and other European countries, the USA, Australia and Canada, this ground-breaking book attends to the paranormal as a position from which to critique dominant forms of knowledge production and spirituality. A rich exploration of everyday life practices, textual engagements and discourses relating to the paranormal, as well as the mediation, technology and art of paranormal activity, this book explores themes such as subcultures and mainstreaming, as well as epistemological, methodological, and phenomenological questions, and the role of the paranormal in social change. The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures constitutes an essential resource for those interested in the academic study of cultural engagements with paranormality; it will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, popular culture, sociology, cultural geography, literature, film and music.

"The essays are clear and well written. Recommended. All readers."— Choice

"This is just a marvelous collection of essays (and essayists) - deeply versed in the theoretical literatures and the historical materials, smart, critical, sympathetic, as interested in the popular as the elite, and, above all, sufficiently weird. What they show as a whole is that the paranormal is normal, or, better, that the normal is not what we thought it was. Exactly the kind of notes we should be striking in cutting edge scholarship."— Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University, USA and author of Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred

"This welcome collection takes a refreshingly eclectic approach to the meaning, expression, and representation of the paranormal, demonstrating the scholarly value of research in the field. Drawing upon the diverse expertise of its contributors, it provides an intellectually stimulating look at ghosts, UFOs, spiritualism, and broader paranormal cultures without getting unnecessarily bogged down in abstruse theory."— Owen Davies, University of Hertfordshire, UK

"The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures sounds like something to have handy by your bedside in case of ghosts, ghouls or other unexplained phenomena and maybe it is, but it is so much more. This work showcases exciting new research into intriguing everyday aspects of parapsychology, critiqued through different filters and from different viewpoints. This work offers interesting and entertaining insight for casual readers curious about the paranormal although part of a series from the same publisher, targeted at scholars and graduate students through presenting cutting-edge scholarly research. While early parapsychology research was criticized for failing to prove the existence of the paranormal this work offers new and timely, plural and refreshing angles on the manifestation, meaning and representations of the paranormal within our lived experiences, supporting the need for more research while being seriously weird enough to be wonderful."— Media Culture Reviews

"This work represents an important leap forward in exploring the full range of beliefs, practices, and cultures that have so far been largely ignored by scholarship."— Nova Religio

"The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures should be of interest to... students and professors of culture, literature, religion, and the supernatural. Libraries should own it."— Jeannie B. Thomas, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA, Folklore

ISBN: 9780815383437

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 820g

472 pages