LEADER 05252nam 2200637Ia 450 001 9910134709603321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-87421-356-8 010 $a0-585-17525-X 035 $a(CKB)111004365689102 035 $a(EBL)486002 035 $a(OCoLC)44958637 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000100816 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11109016 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000100816 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10037138 035 $a(PQKB)10690190 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3571668 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse16250 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC486002 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL486002 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr11217612 035 $a(EXLCZ)99111004365689102 100 $a19990522d1999 ub 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurbn#---uuuuu 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$a"Alas, poor ghost!" $etraditions of belief in story and discourse /$fby Gillian Bennett 205 $aRevised edition. 210 $aLogan $cUtah State University Press$dc1999 215 $a1 online resource (233 pages) $cillustrations; digital, PDF file(s) 300 $a"New, expanded, and extensively rev. ed. of Traditions of belief : women and the supernatural." 311 08$aPrint versio : 9780874212785 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 207-220) and index. 327 $aBelief and Disbelief --Is Belief in the Supernatural Declining? --Telling It Slant --Patterns of Belief --Order in Chaos --Family Love --Competing Cultures --Contact with the Dead --Life after Death --Ghosts and Hauntings --Visitations --Cause, Consequence, and Lack Liquidated --Delving --Witnesses, Bereavement, and the Sense of Presence / Kate Bennett --Witnesses --Bereavement --The Sense of Presence --From Private Experience to Public Performance Supernatural Experience as Narrative --Belief and Disbelief: Patterns of Narration --Story Dialectic: The Imaginary Judge and Jury --"Alas, Poor Ghost!" Case Studies in the History of Ghosts and Visitations --The Ghost of Hamlet's Father --The Cock Lane Poltergeist --The Clodd/Lang Debate --The Vanishing Hitchhiker --A Brief History of "Witnesses" --Collecting the Data --The Manchester Study --The Leicester Study --Transcribing Spoken Texts --The Manchester Respondents --Linguistic Clues to Belief and Disbelief --Word Lists Showing Story Patterns in Memorates -- Bibliography -- Index. 330 $aIn the rational modern world, belief in the supernatural seemingly has been consigned to the worlds of entertainment and fantasy. Yet belief in other worldly phenomena, from poltergeists to telepathy, remains strong, as Gillian Bennett's research shows. Especially common is belief in continuing contact with, or the continuing presence of, dead family members. Bennett interviewed women in Manchester, England, asking them questions about ghosts and other aspects of the supernatural. (Her discussion of how her research methods and interview techniques evolved is in itself valuable.) She first published the results of the study in the well-received Traditions of Belief: Women and the Supernatural, which has been widely used in folklore and women's studies courses. "e;Alas, Poor Ghost!"e; extensively revises and expands that work. In addition to a fuller presentation and analysis of the original field research and other added material, the author, assisted by Kate Bennett, a gerontological psychologist, presents and discusses new research with a group of women in Leicester, England. Bennett is interested in more than measuring the extent of belief in other worldly manifestations. Her work explores the relationship between narrative and belief. She anticipated that her questions would elicit from her interviewees not just yes or no replies but stories about their experiences that confirmed or denied notions of the supernatural. The more controversial the subject matter, the more likely individuals were to tell stories, especially if their answers to questions of belief were positive. These were most commonly individualized narratives of personal experience, but they contained many of the traditional motifs and other content, including belief in the supernatural, of legends. Bennett calls them memorates and discusses the cultural processes, including ideas of what is a "e;proper"e; experience of the supernatural and a "e;proper"e; telling of the story, that make them communal as well as individual. These memorates provide direct and vivid examples of what the storytellers actually believe and disbelieve. In a final section, Bennett places her work in historical context through a discussion of case studies in the history of supernatural belief. 606 $aFolklore$zGreat Britain 606 $aOccultism$zGreat Britain 606 $aGhosts$zGreat Britain 606 $aWomen$zGreat Britain$vFolklore 615 0$aFolklore 615 0$aOccultism 615 0$aGhosts 615 0$aWomen 676 $a398/.0941 676 $a398.0941 700 $aBennett$b Gillian$0801375 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910134709603321 996 $aAlas, Poor Ghost$91802703 997 $aUNINA