Hauntology

Ghosts and spectres, the eerie and the occult. Why is contemporary culture so preoccupied by the supernatural, so captivated by the revenants of an earlier age, so haunted? The concept of Hauntology has evolved since first emerging in the 1990s, and has now entered the cultural mainstream as a shorthand for our new-found obsession with the recent past. But where does this term come from and what exactly does it mean? This book seeks to answer these questions by examining the history of our fascination with the uncanny from the golden age of the Victorian ghost story to the present day. From Dickens to Derrida, MR James to Mark Fisher; from the rise of Spiritualism to the folk horror revival, Hauntology traces our continuing engagement with these esoteric ideas. Moving between the literary and the theoretical, the visual and the political, Hauntology explores our nostalgia for the cultural artefacts of a past from which we seem unable to break free.

Ghosts and spectres, the eerie and the occult. Why is contemporary culture so preoccupied by the supernatural, so captivated by the revenants of an earlier age, so haunted? The concept of Hauntology has evolved since first emerging in the 1990s, and has now entered the cultural mainstream as a shorthand for our new-found obsession with the recent past. But where does this term come from and what exactly does it mean? This book seeks to answer these questions by examining the history of our fascination with the uncanny from the golden age of the Victorian ghost story to the present day. From Dickens to Derrida, MR James to Mark Fisher; from the rise of Spiritualism to the folk horror revival, Hauntology traces our continuing engagement with these esoteric ideas. Moving between the literary and the theoretical, the visual and the political, Hauntology explores our nostalgia for the cultural artefacts of a past from which we seem unable to break free.

In response to the recent ‘spectral turn’ within criminology this book presents, for the first time, a concise, comprehensive, approachable and critically engaged guide to hauntology for criminological researchers and graduate students. Hauntology is, in essence, a mode of analysing the repressions, absences and lacks that shape our social world. The book outlines how criminological researchers may welcome hauntings into their work, to escape the ontological tethers of administrative criminology and to reveal the importance of absence in their work. Specifically, the book is structured around key criminological themes, from prisons to the environment, and examines how the lens of ‘haunting’ helps unlock new critical enquiry by revealing the voices that are all too often buried. In doing so, it presents an examination of how hauntological concepts can be ‘read’ criminologically as well as addressing how they can be used to expand criminological imagination. Throughout the book, we use hauntology to amplify the significance of justice within criminology as an intellectual and ethical endeavour. We argue that a spectral attitude bolsters our ability to ‘do justice’ to our research, our questions, our participants, our subjects, our objects, and what counts as criminological knowledge. The book is guided by the following objectives: • To introduce the importance of hauntology for encountering the spectres repressed within criminological knowledge and research. • To outline the key concepts of hauntology to offer new critical insight into their application across the field of criminology. • To examine the multiple ways hauntology stretches the ontological and epistemological foundations of criminological research. • To produce an approachable, comprehensive and theoretically driven compendium that both motivates and guides current and future research across all areas of criminology. Hauntology: An Introduction for Criminologists is a guide for criminologists that is designed to, for the first time, help direct future hauntological research and enhanced learning capacity across the discipline of criminology.

In response to the recent ‘spectral turn’ within criminology this book presents, for the first time, a concise, comprehensive, approachable and critically engaged guide to hauntology for criminological researchers and graduate students. Hauntology is, in essence, a mode of analysing the repressions, absences and lacks that shape our social world. The book outlines how criminological researchers may welcome hauntings into their work, to escape the ontological tethers of administrative criminology and to reveal the importance of absence in their work. Specifically, the book is structured around key criminological themes, from prisons to the environment, and examines how the lens of ‘haunting’ helps unlock new critical enquiry by revealing the voices that are all too often buried. In doing so, it presents an examination of how hauntological concepts can be ‘read’ criminologically as well as addressing how they can be used to expand criminological imagination. Throughout the book, we use hauntology to amplify the significance of justice within criminology as an intellectual and ethical endeavour. We argue that a spectral attitude bolsters our ability to ‘do justice’ to our research, our questions, our participants, our subjects, our objects, and what counts as criminological knowledge. The book is guided by the following objectives: • To introduce the importance of hauntology for encountering the spectres repressed within criminological knowledge and research. • To outline the key concepts of hauntology to offer new critical insight into their application across the field of criminology. • To examine the multiple ways hauntology stretches the ontological and epistemological foundations of criminological research. • To produce an approachable, comprehensive and theoretically driven compendium that both motivates and guides current and future research across all areas of criminology. Hauntology: An Introduction for Criminologists is a guide for criminologists that is designed to, for the first time, help direct future hauntological research and enhanced learning capacity across the discipline of criminology.