The Paranormative

Contributors to this special issue posit that, with the popular renewal of astrological, mystical, and pagan practices and discourses, we are witnessing a cultural demand for knowledge that exceeds the epistemological limitations of the secular. As more and more in our shared present turns to the paranormal, the authors ask, “To what extent can the ‘paranormative’ resist capital and white supremacy, and to what extent is even the shifting ground of the normal open to commodification?” The articles in this issue cover the imponderable in relation to the normative: premodern Chinese poems composed by ghosts, the rise of the occult in new media, the aesthetics of possession as they embolden Black queer desire, and the astronomical search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Contributors: Brandon S. Callender, Jack W. Chen, Helena Kernan, Delali Kumavie, Jonathan Jacob Moore, Kathleen Powers, and Liz Rose