Reading the Sphinx

Book excerpt: "Reading the Sphinx unearths a buried cultural history haunted by Egyptian ghosts, Lynn Parramore examines issues of western identity, inheritance, gender, and sexuality through the interlocking stories of nineteenth-century collectors, conjurers, artists, travelers, and psychic explorers as they encounter Egyptian antiquity. Bringing together cultural analysis, literary history, and psychology, Parramore explores the productions of a wide range, of fascinating figures, from Herodotus to Freud. Reading the Sphinx is a new cultural history that traces the suppression, distortion, and, ultimately, the resurrection of maternal powers from the crypt of memory."--BOOK JACKET.