Ghost Stories

What are ghosts? Why are we haunted by them? And why are we so drawn to telling stories about these hauntings? In this class, we will read ghost stories from the 17th century through the present day; in the process, we will examine what these stories reveal about our own preoccupations, fears, and desires. Writers and readers turn to ghost stories for horror and suspense, for sure, but also because they’re a powerful medium for reckoning with history and memory—with the past’s hold over the present—particularly when it comes to violence, loss, oppression, and trauma. Ghost stories engage with issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality; with social otherness; with marginalization. Ghost stories stage problems of justice, vengeance, and guilt. Ghost stories trouble the nature of the body, and the meaning of (and boundaries between) life and death. Ghost stories lend themselves both to fear and to laughter, both to questions and to answers. While exploring all of these topics and themes, we will also consider the trope of storytelling itself, which figures prominently in so many works of the genre. What is wrapped up in the gesture of telling a story, and in the ways, contexts, and reasons in and for which these stories get told? Readings (subject to change) include works by Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Helen Oyeyemi, Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and others.