Magic, Illusion and Detection at the Turn of the Last Century

O'Malley, Michael

Magic, Illusion and Detection at the Turn of the Last Century

dc.contributor.author	O'Malley, Michael
dc.date.accessioned	2020-05-04T21:01:42Z
dc.date.available	2020-05-04T21:01:42Z
dc.date.issued	2004
dc.description	The WARC file must be opened using a program like Webrecorder.io. The ZIP contains a static version of the website.
dc.description.abstract	Website for a history course at George Mason University. This course explored two simultaneous tendencies in American life at the turn of the last century. On the one hand, the rise of industrialization made Americans fascinated with personal transformation--with self making, with economic mobility, and with the possibility of changing your place in life. This new, modern world highlighted the difference between the real and the fake. In an age of mass copies and new identities, how could you tell the genuine, honest man from the con man? As much as they loved magic and personal transformation, Americans of this era loved detection, and the wide range of new techniques--like fingerprints, mug shots, and criminology generally--designed to pin identity down. The course focused on this simultaneous, contradictory fascination with both self transformation and with stabilizing identity. The course made extensive use of this game-like website, which was designed to reproduce some of the ambiguities of historical research itself. Former URL: chnm.gmu.edu/courses/magic/.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1920/11737
dc.language.iso	en_US
dc.publisher	Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
dc.subject	Digital history
dc.subject	Pedagogy
dc.title	Magic, Illusion and Detection at the Turn of the Last Century
dc.type	Learning Object