This dissertation bridges literary and media studies by examining the impact of new media technologies on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Anglophone literature and culture. It argues that media technologies like the camera and the phonograph triggered a rupture in the nineteenth century, as writing was stripped of its ability to store optical and acoustical information, and literary texts responded by illustrating and critiquing the effects of these technologies within their narratives. It traces this shift through the rise of modern spiritualism, which was inspired by the telegraph's seemingly magical ability to enable communication between disembodied minds. Spiritualists employed a wide range of media technologies in their attempts to communicate with the dead, from cameras and typewriters to radios and tape recorders, claiming they provided scientific evidence of the survival of human personality after death. While such claims represent an attempt to preserve the idea of the liberal humanist subject, spiritualist practices more often reveal how these technologies threatened the concept of the "self" or the "soul" created by literacy. Through close readings of various short stories and novels, this dissertation shows how literary narratives often dramatize the spiritualists' use of media technologies in order to illustrate the uncanny effects of modern media while simultaneously critiquing their threat to the autonomy and integrity of the individual subject.
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