Overview

From essays about the Salem witch trials to literary uses of ghosts by Twain, Wharton, and Bierce to the cinematic blockbuster The Sixth Sense, this book is the first to survey the importance of ghosts and hauntings in American culture across time. From the Puritans' conviction that a thousand preternatural beings appear every day before our eyes, to today's resurgence of spirits in fiction and film, the culture of the United States has been obsessed with ghosts. In each generation, these phantoms in popular culture reflect human anxieties about religion, science, politics, and social issues.

Full Product Details

9780299199500

Table of Contents

Reviews

I know of no other book currently in print that explores with the same level of intellectual and critical seriousness the scope of spectral phenomena covered in this collection. Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont, author of <i>Poe s Children</i>

Ghosts are a booming industry, and this eclectic and engaging collection of studies, both literary and historical, addresses America's relationship to the spectral. --Lynette Carpenter, Ohio Wesleyan University, editor of Haunting the House of Fiction

"""Ghosts are a booming industry, and this eclectic and engaging collection of studies, both literary and historical, addresses America's relationship to the spectral.""--Lynette Carpenter, Ohio Wesleyan University, editor of Haunting the House of Fiction ""I know of no other book currently in print that explores with the same level of intellectual and critical seriousness the scope of spectral phenomena covered in this collection.""--Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont, author of Poe's Children"

I know of no other book currently in print that explores with the same level of intellectual and critical seriousness the scope of spectral phenomena covered in this collection. Tony Magistrale, University of Vermont, author of Poe s Children

Author Information

JEFFREY ANDREW WEINSTOCK is Associate Professor of English at Central Michigan University. He is the author or editor of six previous books.

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