Skip Navigation
Search

Research Cafe Header

Breanna Brock

Anthony Gomez
Ph.D. candidate in English

Spectacles of the Dead: Spiritualism, Silent Film, and the Birth of the Oil Industry

Synopsis:

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, several of the most successful oil speculators were spiritualists. These individuals believed contact with the spirits of dead or dying ‘Native Americans’ could lead them to undiscovered oil wells. My talk addresses how these often overlooked histories were essential to the development of the oil and film industry, how both industries still contain traces of this supernatural-obsessed past, and how Indigenous resistance to these trends offer a form of environmental resistance worth reviving today.

 

Tuesday, April 16th, 2024
12:00 PM

 

 RSVP Today!