This episode of The Original Contribution podcast discusses the contribution made by Dr Lorena MacMillan.

Lorena got her Ph.D. from Anglia Ruskin University in English Literature. The title of her thesis is “Reaching the Dead: The Impact of the Victorian Ghost Story on Interpretive Spiritualist Communities from 1855-1914”. It is this piece of work that we will be discussing today.

Timepoints

00:00:50 - Introduction to Dr Lorena MacMillan

00:06:15 - Title of the thesis

00:07:00 - Interpretive spiritualist communities

00:12:15 - Society for Psychical Research

00:13:38 - Mediums, mesmerism, séances and hypnotism

00:15:00 - Dates 1855-1914

00:18:00 - Spiritualism and religion

00:22:13 - COVID

00:24:15 - Dickens and Lang

00:27:55 - TP James and the Mystery of Edwin Drood

00:28:48 - The Science

00:30:00 - Findings of the Thesis

00:31:00 - Methodology

00:34:20 - Happy with the outcome?

00:35:20 - Coding the themes of the research

00:37:45 - Women in spiritualism

00:39:33 - Surprising findings

00:42:50 - Opposing arguments

00:45:15 - How could this research move forward

00:47:00 - Spiritualism and the media

00:48:15 - It’s about the supervisor not the University

00:51:00 - The original contribution

00:52:00 - Marianas trench “The killing Kind”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOXgKgZTs3I

Music that represents this thesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOXgKgZTs3I

Guest research and socials: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-lorena-n-macmillan-0620a112b/

Thesis: https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Reaching_the_dead_the_impact_of_the_Victorian_ghost_story_on_interpretive_spiritualist_communities_from_1855-1914/23932497/1

Podcast link & contact info: www.TheOriginalContribution.com

To guest on TOC please email: Ant@TheOriginalContribution.com

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