Spectral Spaces and Hauntings

220 Pages·2017·3.145 MB·English

by  Christina Lee (editor)

Spectral Spaces and Hauntings
A timely and important collection of incisive and insightful essays which
address some of the most urgent and important issues which concern
scholars working in memory studies, and humanities more generally.
—Anindya Raychaudhuri, University of St Andrews, UK
How might contact with geographies of absence shift our taken-for-
granted understandings of space and time? In this timely intervention,
a range of scholars and artists explore how the memories, experiences
and material environments of particular places have the power to haunt
the social imaginary and our individual psyches. By reanimating the
realities of abandoned places, ruins and the disappeared, the authors of
Spectral Spaces and Hauntings call us to attend to the ‘work that needs
to be done to prevent future injustices’.
—Karen E. Till, Maynooth University, Ireland
This anthology explores the spatial dimension and politics of haunting.
It considers how the ‘appearance’ of absence, emptiness and the imper-
ceptible can indicate an overwhelming presence of something that once
was, and still is, (t)here. At its core, the book asks: how and why do cer-
tain places haunt us? Drawing from a diversity of mediums, forms and
disciplinary approaches, the contributors to Spectral Spaces and Haunt-
ings illustrate the complicated ways absent presences can manifest and
be registered. The case studies range from the memory sites of a terrorist
attack, the lost home, a vanished mining town and abandoned airports,
to the post-apocalyptic wastelands in literary fiction, the photographic
and filmic surfaces where spectres materialise, and the body as a site
for re-corporealising the disappeared and dead. In ruminating on the
afteraffects of spectral spaces on human experience, the anthology im-
portantly foregrounds the ethical and political imperative of engaging
with ghosts and following their traces.
Christina Lee is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Cultural Studies
at Curtin University, Australia.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.
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105 Spectral Spaces and Hauntings
The Affects of Absence
Edited by Christina Lee
Spectral Spaces and
Hauntings
The Affects of Absence
Edited by Christina Lee
First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Christina Lee to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lee, Christina (Lecturer in Communication
and Cultural Studies), editor.
Title: Spectral spaces and hauntings / edited by Christina Lee.
Description: 1 [edition]. | New York: Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge research in cultural and media studies; 105 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016044954
Subjects: LCSH: Parapsychology—Psychological aspects. |
Parapsychology and geography. | Haunted places. | Ghosts.
Classification: LCC BF1040 .S64 2017 | DDC 133.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044954
ISBN: 978-1-138-85682-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71911-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
To my parents,
Gerk Hong and Eng Guan,
and to Goldsworthy
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Locating Spectres 1
CHRISTINA LEE
PART I
Private Hauntings
1 The Haunted Spaces of 7/7: Memory, Mediatisation
and Performance 19
JOHN TULLOCH
2 Dream House 40
PIPPA TANDY
3 Home Is Where the Hearth Was: Remembering
and Place-Making a Vanished Town 51
CHRISTINA LEE
4 Unsettling Space and Time: Journey to Purton
Ships’ Graveyard 70
LISA HILL
5 ‘Popping Up to See Pat’: Attending Absence
at Roadside Shrines 85
ELLY BAVIDGE
viii Contents
PART II
Spectres of the Social
6 ‘Un aéroport-fantôme’: The Ghost of Mirabel
International Airport 103
LIz MILLWARD
7 zombie South: Cormac McCarthy’s Architectures
of the Undead 117
DANIEL CROSS TURNER
8 Double Exposure: Rephotography and the
Life of Place 133
LáSzLó MUNTEáN
9 Ghosts on Screen: The Politics of Intertemporality 150
ALISON LANDSBERG
10 ‘Our Monuments Shall Be the Maws of
Kites’: Laura Oldfield Ford and the Ghosts
of Psychogeography Past 165
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER
11 From Spectres of Horror to ‘The Beautiful Death’:
Re-Corporealising the Desaparecidos of Argentina 182
SONIA M. TASCóN
List of Contributors 195
Index 197
List of Figures
I.A Traces of trauma: Charlie Hebdo temporary memorial
in Paris, France. © Christina Lee, 2015 3
1.1 and 1.2 Haunted space: John Tulloch visiting the 7/7 Memorial
in Hyde Park, London. © Christina Lee, 2013 27
2.1 The wardrobe 47
2.2 Resting place 47
2.3 Empty spaces 48
2.4 The sickroom 48
2.5 Bathroom 49
2.6 Dream House 49
3.1 and 3.2 Black Rock Stakes: The Flying Fleas marathon team
(1988) and The Final Run (2008). Goldsworthy oval,
Western Australia. © Christina Lee, 1988, 2008 53
4.1 Gloucester Docks. © Lisa Hill, 2014 72
4.2 Opening Splatt Bridge. © Lisa Hill, 2014 78
4.3 The Dispatch. © Lisa Hill, 2014 82
5.1 The social reach of absence: A roadside memorial on
Newcastle Road, Sunderland. © Elly Bavidge, 2009 93
8.1 Dear Photograph: Locating personal ghosts in
rephotography. © Colleen and Taylor Jones, 2012 140
8.2 Window to the Past: Nostalgic re-imaginings of
Budapest. © zoltán Kerényi and Fortepan, 1900/2012 143
8.3 Link to the Past: Uncanny eruptions within
present-day St Petersburg. © Sergey Larenkov,
1943/2011 145
9.1 Ghostly encounter: Hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami
Malek) with Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) in
Mr. Robot. © Universal Cable Company, The Kobal
Collection and David Giesbrecht, 2015 159
11.1 Spectres of violence: Alicia (Norma Aleandro) and
Roberto ( Héctor Alterio) in La Historia Oficial
(The Official Story). © Historias/Progress and
The Kobal Collection, 1985 189