Dr. Michele Hanks, an anthropologist who does ethnographic work with paranormal investigation groups, joins Matt to discuss the role of doubt in paranormal investigation.
Returning Special Guest: Dr. Michele Hanks
Dr. Michele Hanks is a cultural anthropologist, teacher, and writer. She has taught writing in the Expository Writing Program at New York University since 2015.
She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with English paranormal investigators and ghost tourists as well as more recent fieldwork with psychics in NYC. Her book, Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past, was published in 2015.
Her writing also appears in American Anthropologist, Nova Religio, Ethnos, and Focaal.
She was our special guest in Episode 25 where she provided some thought-provoking comments on the search for evidence, what belief in ghosts means, and how this all ties into larger cultural issues.
This episode featured music by Matthew Armstrong and production assistance from Kaylia Metcalfe.
There is no transcript of this episode. Considering supporting the show so we can pay someone to transcribe our interviews.
Support The Show
Supporters get early access to our episodes as well as that warm feeling of knowing that you, yes you, are helping our intrepid Ghosthropologist keep working and keeping our producer well-caffeinated.
Show Notes and Sources
Archaeological writers we mention (Lewis Binford, Barbara Bender, Ken Feder, Brian Fagan)
The Society for Psychical Research
Thomas Kuhn (Critique of Science)
Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
Sources:
Hanks, Michele. 2015. Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past. Routledge, London.
Hanks, Michelle. 2016. Between Electricity and Spirit: Paranormal Investigation
and the Creation of Doubt in England. American Anthropologist, Vol. 118, No. 4, pp. 811–823.
Hanks, Michelle. 2019. Haunted Objects: English Paranormal Investigation and the Material Mediation of Doubt. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 22, Issue 4, pages 60–74.
Hood, Bruce M. 2009. Supersense – Why We Believe in the Unbelievable. HarperOne, New York, NY.
Josephson-Storm, Jason. 2017. The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Il.
Luhrmann, Tanya. 1989. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Luhrman, Tanya. 2012 When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Knopf, New York, NY
Storm – Myth of disenchantment
KMMA Media 