Trance Speakers: Femininity and Authorship in Spiritual Séances, 1850-1930

Few people know that Susanna Moodie participated in spiritual séances with her husband, Dunbar, and her sister, Catharine Parr Traill. Moodie, like many other women, found in her communications with the departed an important space to question her commitment to authorship and her understanding of femininity.

Retracing the history of possession and mediumship among women following the emergence of spiritualism in mid-nineteenth-century Canada - and unearthing a vast collection of archival docu...