Contemporary Ghost Stories

Catalog description

"The ghost" writes sociologist Avery Gordon, "represents a something-to-be-done." When a ghost appears in literature, "The present wavers. Something will happen." A haunting is often an appeal (or a demand) for action. Inside a short story, the escalation of a haunting becomes an engine of revelation. Ghosts expose secret architectures of power and desire, unresolved violence and ongoing injustice. Ghosts can also reveal pathways forward, and possibilities that have been hiding from us in noonlight. In this short story workshop, we will read work by Jamil Jan Kochai, Louise Erdrich, Tananarive Due, Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay, Victor LaValle, Adam Soto, Kelly Link, Mariana Enriquez and others. We'll explore what ghost stories reveal to us about humans' perennial and evolving fears. We'll also read excerpts from Freud, Derrida, and Gordon that give us a theoretical lens through which to consider literary hauntings. You will write your own ghost stories, and we will workshop them with honesty and care.