This book addresses the pervasive representation of women with unique visionary abilities in postfeminist television series and films from the 1990s to the present. These women mediate between the living and the dead or between different worlds of experience, redefining what it means to be "normal" and challenging the traditional boundary between science and the inner world of visionary, mystical experience.
Part 1 includes a discussion of modern-day Cassandra figures, including the witches and other "seers" of the television series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Charmed, Hex
, and
Tru Calling
. Part 2 discusses modern television shows whose main characters represent a contemporary spin on Joan of Arc, including
Joan of Arcadia
and the short-lived
Wonderfalls
. Finally, Part 3 investigates female mediums and other "psychic detectives" in reality television series such as
Psychic Investigators
and
Rescue Mediums
; the popular television dramas
Medium, Ghost Whisperer
Afterlife
; and contemporary films such as
Ghost, The Gift
Premonition
.