The History of Women in Spiritualism

How did séances and spirit communication become one of the most unexpected spaces of female influence? The history of psychic mediums and séance gatherings, in many ways, is a distinctly female story. In 1848, the American Fox sisters, who were early practitioners of modern spiritualism, reported ghostly occurrences in their own home. This led to a movement that placed women at the centre of spiritualism.

From psychic authors like Florence Marryat to spirit painters like Georgiana Houghton, this talk will uncover the powerful women whose contact with the dead stirred a new way of living. Join us to discover how mediumship and séance culture roused generations of artists, authors, and businesswomen to draw inspiration from the world of ghosts. 

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7:30pm - come down early to grab a good seat!

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Dr Emily Vincent is a Tutor in English at the University of Oxford where she teaches on ghost stories and the Gothic for the Astrophoria Foundation Year. Emily holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and her first book on nineteenth-century spiritualism, women’s ghost stories, and maternal grief is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. She has edited a collection of spiritualism stories and is currently co-writing a book for Manchester University Press on popular literature and culture inspired by influenza epidemics. 

Emily has spoken at the Museum and Archives of North Vancouver and has been interviewed for ‘The Ghost Story Book Club’ podcast. Alongside this, Emily co-runs the Gothica network and has research and editor roles at Durham University’s Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies International (CNCSI) and for the Taylor and Francis Journal Advances in Nineteenth-Century Research. 

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21 Soho, 3 Sutton Row, London, United Kingdom

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