The Ghost: A Cultural History

My review

It took me 3 years to read this book, but I started reading it as soon as I got it and then I guess I decided to only read it around Halloween times so it took a while.

I decided to go ahead and finish it instead of waiting for next September to roll around. I got stuck inside some of the stories I was reading and it finally felt like a shame to put it down for a year! (Besides, it’s spooky all the time for me.) Then I took ONLY this book (+ reading journal) on a road trip and read from it all 3 nights I was stuck out there in a snowstorm just a few hours from home. It was so nice to finish it and flip through all my notes and discoveries. Even though journaling while reading a book takes so much more time than just reading it, I think I am leaning towards preferring that process. I get a lot more out of the experience of reading the book, not to mention a notebook full of ideas and feelings. In this case, feelings about ghosts.

I enjoyed combing through art, literature, plays, creative technology… I loved learning about ghosts through time and how we morphed and molded our ways of expressing them. So many ideas in this book got my gears turning towards other things, little paintings I could make. Little videos of a ghost story.

Ahead of starting the book, I wrote down as many different kinds of ghosts that I could think of. The book included many of these and more, but what struck me as most novel was mention of art with “ghost” or “ghosts” in the title, especially if that art isn’t a traditional portrait of a ghost. How using that word – ghost – strongly implies something that you can’t see or might not believe. I like that. Let’s make everything spookier. Of course, we also all love a ghost bonded to a house for some reason and ghosts that only stick around to reveal the terrible crime of their murder.

GHOSTS
A Christmas Carol (ghosts that teach you life lessons)
revenge ghost
cosmic/natural ghosts
ghost doppelgangers
corpses, demons, wraiths
ghosts that can beat you up
sheet ghost, blanket ghost, quilt ghost
crypt ghost
ghosts that know our secrets
cottage ghosts, mansion ghosts, apartment building ghosts
ghosts as emotions
exes, people who stop talking to you suddenly
how we feel sometimes (you’re not a ghost)
forest, mountain, beach ghosts
child ghosts
drummer ghost (ghost drummer)
hotel & pub ghosts (taverns + bars)
war ghosts
prison ghosts
Harry Potter ghosts
non-malicious ghosts
amnesiac ghosts
vulgar ghosts
ghosts made in a lab
skeleton ghosts
ghost nuns
ghost warriors
ghost witch
cat + dog ghosts
swamp ghosts
holy ghosts (revenant ghosts)
ghosts with unfinished business
ghosts in another dimension
dancing ghosts
GHOST DUET
ghosts that haunt books
typewriter ghost
angry ghosts
computer ghost, tv ghost
murder ghost
death from disease ghosts
ghost horses
ordinary ghosts
anxious ghosts
ghosts seeking absolution
shrieking ghost
attention-seeking ghosts
ghosts that don’t know they’re dead
rich ghosts

Written: 1/19/22

tags: #type/book-rec #topic/ghost-stories #topic/spooky
title: The Ghost : A Cultural History
author: [Susan Owens]
category: [Social Science]

description: Ghosts are woven into the very fabric of British life. Their enduring popularity in literature, art, folklore and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts - the fears that they provoke, the forms they take - personifies our shared past, reminding us of the layers of history beneath our feet and of old stories and timeless terrors that refuse to be erased. In this broad cultural history, Susan Owens reveals what these spirits and apparitions can tell us about our culture and about ourselves, and explores how ghosts have inhabited a wide range of roles from medieval times to the present day. A dazzling range of artists are featured, including William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Paul Nash and Jeremy Deller, alongside writers such as John Donne, William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters.

publisher: Tate
published: 2019-10-01
total pages: 0
isbn: 1849766460 9781849766463

created: 2025-01-07 20:29:48
updated: 2025-01-07 20:29:48