Ghosts Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History [Hardcover]

Did you know that the father of psychoanalysis believed in ghosts, or that Frederick Engels attended seances? Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History is the first collection of theoretical essays to evaluate these facts and consider the importance of the metaphor of haunting as it has appeared in literature, culture, and philosophy. Haunting is considered as both a literal and figurative term that encapsulates social anxieties and concerns. The collection includes discussions of nineteenth-century spiritualism, gothic and postcolonial ghost stories, and popular film, with essays on important theoretical writers including Freud, Derrida, Adorno, and Walter Benjamin.Notes on Contributors Introduction: A Future for Haunting; P.Buse and A.Stott I: SPECTRALITY AND THEORY Specters of Engels; W.Maley 'Something Tremendous, Something Elemental': On the Ghostly Origins of Psychoanalysis; R.Luckhurst Phantasmagoria: Walter Benjamin and the Poetics of Urban Modernism; C.Britzolakis Spectre and Impurity: History and the Transcendental in Derrida and Adorno; N.Mapp II: UNCANNY FICTIONS Anachrony and Anatopia: Specters of Marx, Derrida and Gothic Fiction; R.Parkin-Gounelas Theft, Terror, and Family Values: The Mysteries and Domesticities of Udolpho; N.Freeland The Medium of Exchange; M.Merck The Postcolonial Ghost Story; K.Gelder and J.M.Jacobs III: SPECTRAL CULTURE The Machine in the Ghost: Spiritualism, Technology, and the 'Direct Voice'; S.Connor Angles in the Architecture: the Economy of the Supernatural; C.Bloom The Other Side of Plato's Wall; R.Noyes Index

'Ghosts: Deconstruction, psychoanalysis, history'...includes...superb essays, searching dark and cobwebby nooks and passages in Victorian and modern thought.' - Marina Warner, Times Literary Supplement

Voted one of the best books of 1999 in the Times Literary Supplement by Marina Warner

CLIVE BLOOM Reader in English and American Studies at Middlesex UniversityCHRISTINA BRITZOLAKIl£+