"Dreaming While Awake": The Evolution of the Concept of Hallucination in the Nineteenth Century

This paper will show that the rationalist theory of "spectral illusions" which discounted the objective reality of ghost-seeing, was challenged during the rise of the spiritualist faith, which drew a huge amount of attention from the scientific and artistic community to the psychogenesis of hallucinations and the rich research possibilities to be found in studying the fallacies of perception. Coming in the wake of the establishment of spiritualism, it will be seen that the Society for Psychical Research proposed that a certain number of hallucinations were "veridical" in that they corresponded to a real and verifiable event in the world - such as the death of a loved one - and could be apprehended telepathically. Thus, hallucinations represent a key concept in nineteenth-century debates surrounding notions of psychological truth, spiritual revelation, and the vagaries of the human imagination

The Spectral Arctic

Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. This strangeness fascinated audiences in nineteenth-century Britain when the idea of the heroic explorer voyaging through unmapped zones reached its zenith. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage. The narratives of Arctic exploration that we are all familiar with today are just the tip of the iceberg: they disguise a great mass of mysterious and dimly lit stories beneath the surface. In contrast to oft-told tales of heroism and disaster, this book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition. Through new readings of archival documents, exploration narratives, and fictional texts, these spectral stories reflect the complex ways that men and women actually thought about the far North in the past. This revisionist historical account allows us to make sense of current cultural and political concerns in the Canadian Arctic about the location of Franklin’s ships

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and its Timings

medical humanities; philosoph

The Spectral Arctic

Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. This strangeness fascinated audiences in nineteenth-century Britain when the idea of the heroic explorer voyaging through unmapped zones reached its zenith. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage. The narratives of Arctic exploration that we are all familiar with today are just the tip of the iceberg: they disguise a great mass of mysterious and dimly lit stories beneath the surface. In contrast to oft-told tales of heroism and disaster, this book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition. Through new readings of archival documents, exploration narratives, and fictional texts, these spectral stories reflect the complex ways that men and women actually thought about the far North in the past. This revisionist historical account allows us to make sense of current cultural and political concerns in the Canadian Arctic about the location of Franklin’s ships

"Dreaming While Awake": The Evolution of the Concept of Hallucination in the Nineteenth Century

This paper will show that the rationalist theory of "spectral illusions" which discounted the objective reality of ghost-seeing, was challenged during the rise of the spiritualist faith, which drew a huge amount of attention from the scientific and artistic community to the psychogenesis of hallucinations and the rich research possibilities to be found in studying the fallacies of perception. Coming in the wake of the establishment of spiritualism, it will be seen that the Society for Psychical Research proposed that a certain number of hallucinations were "veridical" in that they corresponded to a real and verifiable event in the world - such as the death of a loved one - and could be apprehended telepathically. Thus, hallucinations represent a key concept in nineteenth-century debates surrounding notions of psychological truth, spiritual revelation, and the vagaries of the human imagination

The Life and Death of Newcastle Gaol 1822-2022

An exhibition about Newcastle’s borough gaol at Carliol Square- the prison, the prisoners and its legacy in the city. Newcastle City Library

Reconstructing Irish science : the library of the Royal College of Science (1867-1926)

This paper reports on research into the history and library of the Royal College of Science for Ireland which was conducted as part of the UCD Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) series of demonstrator research projects. The Royal College of Science for Ireland (RCScI) was established in 1867, a time when science was developing rapidly in Ireland and elsewhere, and remained in existence until 1926 when it was amalgamated with UCD; during this time it counted among its deans and professors some of the most illustrious names of the day (Sir Robert Kane, William Fletcher Barrett, Robert Galloway, and Walter Noel Hartley). This research project considers the history of the RCScI, concentrating how an examination of the book and journal collections that constituted the RCScI library can contribute to an understanding of scientific and technological education in Ireland. The key objective of this project was to examine and research the extant RCScI collection remaining in storage as well as making preliminary observations about the extent of RCScI material which had been transferred to the UCD library; this has been done by presenting select lists of RCScI books and journals. The project’s online collection includes sample material from the eleven subjects taught in the RCScI and the full text of the 1872 RCScI library catalogue; along with the lists of books and journals and figures of RCScI enrolment also provided, this represents a significant resource. This resource was supplemented by a public exhibition on the project as well as two externally published outputs. The paper reports on the stages of the project and the issues encountered, while also providing further historical information in its appendices and suggesting directions for further research.Higher Education Authorityti.kpw30/9/1

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and its Timings: When is Death?

This volume provides a series of illuminating perspectives on the timings of death, through in-depth studies of Shakespearean tragedy, criminal execution, embalming practices, fears of premature burial, rumours of Adolf Hitler’s survival, and the legal concept of brain death. In doing so, it explores a number of questions, including: how do we know if someone is dead or not? What do people experience at the moment when they die? Is death simply a biological event that comes about in temporal stages of decomposition, or is it a social event defined through cultures, practices, and commemorations? In other words, when exactly is death? Taken together, these contributions explore how death emerges in a series of stages that are uncertain, paradoxical, and socially contested

"Dreaming While Awake": The Evolution of the Concept of Hallucination in the Nineteenth Century

This paper will show that the rationalist theory of "spectral illusions" which discounted the objective reality of ghost-seeing, was challenged during the rise of the spiritualist faith, which drew a huge amount of attention from the scientific and artistic community to the psychogenesis of hallucinations and the rich research possibilities to be found in studying the fallacies of perception. Coming in the wake of the establishment of spiritualism, it will be seen that the Society for Psychical Research proposed that a certain number of hallucinations were "veridical" in that they corresponded to a real and verifiable event in the world - such as the death of a loved one - and could be apprehended telepathically. Thus, hallucinations represent a key concept in nineteenth-century debates surrounding notions of psychological truth, spiritual revelation, and the vagaries of the human imagination