{"product_id":"possessed-stefan-andriopoulos-9780226020549","title":"Possessed: Hypnotic Crimes, Corporate Fiction, and the Invention of Cinema","description":"Silent cinema and contemporaneous literature explored themes of mesmerism, possession, and the ominous agency of corporate bodies that subsumed individual identities. At the same time, critics accused film itself of exerting a hypnotic influence over spellbound audiences. Stefan Andriopoulos shows that all this anxiety over being governed by an outside force was no marginal oddity, but rather a pervasive concern in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.\u003cbr\u003e Tracing this preoccupation through the period's films--as well as its legal, medical, and literary texts--Andriopoulos pays particular attention to the terrifying notion of murder committed against one's will. He returns us to a time when medical researchers described the hypnotized subject as a medium who could be compelled to carry out violent crimes, and when films like \u003ci\u003eThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDr. Mabuse, the Gambler\u003c\/i\u003e famously portrayed the hypnotist's seemingly unlimited power on the movie screen. Juxtaposing these medicolegal and cinematic scenarios with modernist fiction, Andriopoulos also develops an innovative reading of Kafka's novels, which center on the merging of human and corporate bodies.\u003cbr\u003e Blending theoretical sophistication with scrupulous archival research and insightful film analysis, \u003ci\u003ePossessed \u003c\/i\u003eadds a new dimension to our understanding of today's anxieties about the onslaught of visual media and the expanding reach of vast corporations that seem to absorb our own identities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Stefan Andriopoulos\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226020541\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226020549\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/01\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 208\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.80d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChronicle of Higher Education\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/05\/2008 pg. 19\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2009","brand":"Stefan Andriopoulos","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48086388179199,"sku":"9780226020549","price":49.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_d1b44437-b20d-4d76-8465-f779d1581ba5.jpg?v=1769094391","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/possessed-stefan-andriopoulos-9780226020549","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}