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.

Table of Contents

• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction - Sally R. Munt
• PART I PARANORMAL EPISTEMOLOGIES
• Preface
• 1 Haunted Culture: The Persistence of Belief in the Paranormal - Christopher Partridge
• 2 The Ghost in the Machine: Spirit and Technology - John Harvey
• 3 Paranormal Cultural Practices - Annette Hill
• 4 Extraordinary Experiences with UFOs - David Clarke
• 5 Ghosts in the Body: Infections, Genes, and the Re-enchantment of Biology - Robert Peckham
• 6 Sceptic Culture: Traditions of Disbelief in New Mexico - William J. Dewan
• 7 ‘Paranormal Science’ from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenisation - Andrea Molle and Christopher D. Bader
• 8 Making Sense of the Paranormal: A Platonic Context for Research Methods - Angela Voss
• 9 Everyday Ghosts: A Matter of Believing in Belonging - Abby Day
• 10 ‘A Giant Bedsheet with the Holes Cut Out’: Expectations and Discussions of the Appearance of Ghost - Paul Cowdell
• 11 Interpreting Death and the Afterlife in US Paranormal Reality Television Programmes and Online Fan Groups - Diane Dobry
• PART II THE PARANORMAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE
• Preface
• 12 Wilhelm Reich and the Etheric Warriors - Sarah Jane Sloane
• 13 Other Senses: The Politics of Mediumship - Esther Peeren
• 14 ‘There's Something in My House’: Television and the Politics of the Paranormal - Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi
• 15 Social Realism and the Paranormal in Scandinavian Fiction - Olu Jenzen
• 16 Immersed in Illusion, Haunted by History: Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train - Josephine Machon
• 17 Ireland the Anomalous State: Paranormal Cultures and the Irish Literary and Political Revival - Wendy E. Cousins
• 18 Mexico's La Ilustración Espírita: Towards a Transatlantic Understanding of a Spiritualist Archive - María del Pilar Blanco
• 19 Visions of the Paranormal: Representations of Psychic Women and Ghosts in Television and Film - Karin Beeler
• PART III PARANORMAL PHENOMENOLOGIES
• Preface
• 20 The Gizmo and the Glitch: Telepathy, Ocular Philosophy, and other Extensions of Sensation - Kristen Gallerneaux Brooks
• 21 Paranormal Art History: Psychometry and the Afterlife of Objects, a Canadian Case Study - Jennifer Fisher
• 22 Music and the Paranormal - Melvyn J. Willin
• 23 Conjuring the Spirits: Suggestion, Magic, and the Cognitive Approach to Performance Creation - Jon Armstrong
• 24 Trance, Transfiguration and Trust: Spiritualism in Western Australia - Janet Baldwin
• 25 A Phenomenology of the Ghosthunting Scene in the USA and in Germany - Gerhard Mayer
• 26 The GHost Project: Manifesting Ghosts through Visual Art and Creative Research - Sarah Sparkes
• 27 The Monsters of Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes: The Haunting of East London's Lower Lea Valley by Prehistoric Ghosts - Gareth E. Rees
• 28 A Short Bestiary of Creatures from the Web - Line Henriksen
• Bibliography