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Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
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Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Nadis, Fred Robert. "Wonder Shows: Science, Religion, and Magic on the American Stage, 1845-2001," University of Texas at Austin, May 2002.
This study is a cultural history of stage performances that negotiate the fault line between science and religion, comprising the genre I have named “wonder shows.” Over the past century and a half, wonder show performers have sought to reassure audiences that the realms of science and religion are compatible in order to ease public anxieties about the rise of modernity. Chapters look at two general categories of wonder shows: (1) the presentation of technological wonders in a mystifying manner, as in the promotions of new inventions; and (2) at the presentation of mental wonders in a “scientific” context, as in the stage shows of hypnotists and mind readers. The dissertation also points to wonder shows that quite bluntly fuse the technological with the spiritual, as in the presentations of evangelists during the Cold War which relied on technological gadgetry to promote a Christian message. The work is interdisciplinary, combining cultural history with the history of theater, technology, and religion; it also relied on the interpretive frameworks of anthropology and the sociology of science. This study is of value for uncovering a previously-unrecognized performance genre and interpreting it as a series of responses to the crisis of modernization.
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