Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life

by Jack Santino

Why do we celebrate Halloween? No one gets the day off, and unlike all other major holidays it has no religious or governmental affiliation. A survivor of our pre-Christian, agrarian roots, it has become one of the most popular and widely celebrated festivals on the contemporary American calendar.
Jack Santino has put together the first collection of essays to examine the evolution of Halloween from its Celtic origins through its adaptation into modern culture. Using a wide variety of perspectives and approaches, the thirteen essayists examine customs, communities, and material culture to reveal how Halloween has manifested itself throughout all aspects of our society to become not just a marginal survivor of a dying tradition but a thriving, contemporary, post-industrial festival.  Its steadily increasing popularity, despite overcommercialization and criticism, is attributed to its powerful symbolism that employs both pre-Christian images and concepts from popular culture to appeal to groups of all ages, orientations, and backgrounds. However, the essays in this volume also suggest that there is something ironic and unsettling about the immense popularity of a holiday whose main images are of death, evil, and the grotesque.
Halloween and other Festivals of Death and Life is a unique contribution that questions our concepts of religiosity and spirituality while contributing to our understanding of Halloween as a rich and diverse reflection of our society’s past, present, and future identity.
The Jack Santino is an associate professor in the department of popular culture at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.

Genres: Halloween, Nonfiction, Folklore, Horror, Gothic, History, Holiday

312 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

Jack Santino is professor of folklore and popular culture and has served as director of the Bowling Green Center for Popular Culture Studies. He was the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Professor at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, 2010–2011. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Northern Ireland and has conducted research in Spain and France. His documentary film on Pullman Porters, Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle, received four Emmy awards. His research centers on rituals and celebrations, with a particular focus on carnival and political and public ritual as reflective of political, social, and cultural identity. He is the author of numerous books and articles.

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why do we celebrate Halloween?...Jack Santino has put together the first collection of essays to examine the evolution of Halloween from its Celtic origins through its adaptation into modern culture.

Contains thirteen essays that examine Halloween within the context of festivals and observances. These are scholarly examinations, maybe a little "dry" for the non-folklorist, and I'm not totally convinced all of these are backed up by evidence yet.

The goal was to learn something new, and I learned more than I expected.

My favorite of the collection was "Pre-Texts and Contexts" by Tad Tuleja because during this, my first read, I was most interested in historical connections between Samhain and modern, Americanized Halloween. The weirdest of the collection was "Things that Go Snap-Rattle-Clang-Toot-Crank in the Night" by Carl B. Holmberg, which dealt with Halloween noisemakers.

I would tentatively recommend these essays to the casual reader only if they're interested in the festivals and customs based on or inspired by Halloween. If that same reader was simply wanting a historical account, I'd recommend Morton's Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween as an easy-to-read, concise introduction to the subject.

3 stars

Note: All photos are in black and white.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Books of collected essays edited by one person, but written by several, often come out uneven. The same is true here of the twelve essays about Halloween, or related topics. Some of these are quite good while others would only seem to appeal to those interested in, say, the Greenwich Halloween Parade. I found it a useful book to read to get some further background on Halloween, but there was a lot that was, to me, extraneous.

Publishers are reluctant to produce holiday books out of the fear that they’ll only sell for one season. Holidays can be tricky that way. It’s true that many of us get in the mood for reading about Halloween as October rolls around, but for research purposes, such books are important year round.

I gave this book three stars because of its academic approach. Some of the essays are going along fine then the author breaks into academic jargon. It’s a pity because the subject area has no end of fascination. I wrote more about the book elsewhere (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World) and I do recommend it for those who want to shed light on Halloween from different angles, and can stand a bit of jargon.

[Thomas Boguszewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t realize at first that this was a collection of essays instead of one long, straight “history of Halloween,” but I actually got more out of it this way. Since each essay focuses on a relatively narrow topic it’s a great way to get granular and specific about the different rituals of Halloween. It’s also useful for busting some myths around Halloween being some kind of Celtic survivalism. The essay that connected Halloween to Bakhtin’s idea of the carnivalesque, and explored the role of Situationist-style cooptation of rebellion in shaping contemporary Trick-or-treating brought a much appreciated political dimension to the history. It left me with a more mature sense of Halloween being a relatively modern confluence of a multitude of cultural practices that’s under constant construction, guided by unconscious social forces. Really useful for studying not just Halloween specifically, but holidays and folklore generally. Especially useful as a maker of rituals/performances.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of academic essays. That being said some tend to be on the dry side, and the most contemporary one is from, I believe, 1990. Those cavaets aside, if you're a huge Halloween nerd, and you yearn to go deeper down that rabbit hole, this volume will serve. Joyous Samhain!

[Daniel Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling series of essays/articles on Halloween practices in North America. Some of the usual territory is covered, but the bits about noisemakers and rural v. urban/suburban Halloweening were interesting and informative.