Literature, Amusement, and Technology in the Great Depression (review)
Knights of Pythias, the Rosicrucians, Egyptology, Theosophy, Swedenborgianism, mesmerism, conspiracy theory, and mysticism, the contours and details of specific occult narratives remain a bit shadowy in her own text. In other words, while I was very taken by Gillman's argument about the importance of a culture of the occult at the turn of the century, I wanted more description of the secret societies themselves and more examination of the occult narratives they produced. Blood Talk is a wonderfully ambitious book and one that promises to reorient a scholarly conversation about race. Positing the race melodrama as a form of occult historiography, Blood Talk provides an exciting new model for understanding and interrogating race in late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century American culture.