The Spectralities Reader: Ghosts and Haunting in Contemporary Cultural Theory

by María del Pilar Blanco (Editor), Esther Peeren (Editor)

Ghosts, spirits, and specters have played important roles in narratives throughout history and across nations and cultures. A watershed moment for this area of study was the publication of Derrida's Specters of Marx in 1993, marking the inauguration of a "spectral turn" in cultural criticism. Gathering together the most compelling texts of the past twenty years, the editors transform the field of spectral studies with this first ever reader, employing the ghost as an analytical and methodological tool. The Spectralities Reader takes ghosts and haunting on their own terms, as wide-ranging phenomena that are not conscripted to a single aesthetic genre or style.

Divided into six thematically discreet sections, the reader covers issues of philosophy, politics, media, spatiality, subject formation (gender, race and sexuality), and historiography. It anthologizes the previously published work of theoretical heavyweights from different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, such as Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, and Giorgio Agamben, alongside work by literary and cultural historians such as Jeffrey Sconce and Roger Luckhurst.

Genres: Theory, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Horror, Gothic, Ghosts

584 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2013

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 3 out of 5]

As we expect from Bloomsbury readers, this is an elegant collection. It is curated with already published chapters, essays and interviews on the haunting.

There is a trajectory through this collection of both Derrida and Freud, but in the final third, the focus and clarity dissolves. Perhaps appropriately. At this stage of the book, I was questioning why these chapters existed, how they contributed to the title or the 'project.'

A greater grasp was necessary on the (post)concept conceptualizations. Also - the proliferation of possible popular cultural infusions into this Reader were myriad. None of these opportunities or interventions were taken.

It remains a posh book, offering posh commentary about posh literature.

If you want a posh experience, with the attendant fragmentation, then there is a richness and diversity here.

[Henry Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

collecting all these pieces must have been a tough undertaking but well worth it, massively illuminating.

[Christopher Gajsek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A big collection of essays going way beyond the scope of Derrida's initial Book. Expanding and restructuring the ideas touching nearly any topic imaginable while doing so.