ARTH 366 Studies in 19th-Century Art and Architecture: Angels, Ghosts and Zombies

• Instructor: Dr. Felicity T. C. Hamer

In North America and Western Europe, the 19th century saw perceptions of the afterlife expand from terrifying, rigid religious doctrines to include comforting, domestic, and scientifically verified realms. The development of grief consumerism, scientific advancement, and heightened mortality rates due to the American Civil War and major epidemics (connected to rapid industrialization), all contributed to an urgent need to redefine conceptions of the afterlife and representations of the ‘self’ beyond the moment of biological life. This course will examine how these partial presences – guardian angels, unsettled spirits, menacing zombies – haunted, comforted, or preoccupied the living and, importantly, how this was evidenced via their various depictions.