In this text, Kathleen Brogan makes the case that the recent preoccupation with ghosts stems not from a lingering interest in Gothic themes, but instead from a whole new genre in American literature that she calls 'the story of cultural haunting'.

Ghost stories in various forms have been a part of popular literature for centuries, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Faulkner. Over the past twenty-five years, a resurgence of haunting plots has occurred in American literature. In Cultural Haunting, Kathleen Brogan makes the case that this recent preoccupation with ghosts stems not from a lingering interest in Gothic themes but instead from a whole new genre in American literature that she calls "the story of cultural haunting." Examining Louis Erdrich's Tracks, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuba, Brogan argues that modern ghost stories offer a way for minority authors to come to terms with their lost cultural identities. At the heart of this process, she contends, is the experience of mourning as that form of memory determined by an awareness of a break with the past. While conscious of the cultural differences among these haunted tales of slavery, colonization, and immigration, the author demonstrates that they all function similarly: to re-create ethnic identity by imaginatively recovering a collective history that in many cases has been fragmented or erased. Her readings show how the specific histories and local meanings support the pan-ethnic genre she has defined. The book suggests that modern stories of haunting reflect the increased emphasis on ethnic and racial differentation in American society over the past thirty years. The ghosts found in contemporary American literature lead us to the heart of our nation's discourse about multiculturalism and ethnic identity.

In Haunted Heritage, author Michele Hanks draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to delve into the anthropological, sociological, political, historical, and cultural factors that drive the burgeoning business of ghost or paranormal tourism.

Based on years of careful ethnographic fieldwork in Hanoi, Haunting Images offers a frank and compassionate account of the moral quandaries that accompany innovations in biomedical technology. At the center of the book are case studies of thirty pregnant women whose fetuses were labeled "abnormal" after an ultrasound examination. By following these women and their relatives through painful processes of reproductive decision making, Tine M. Gammeltoft offers intimate ethnographic insights into everyday life in contemporary Vietnam and a sophisticated theoretical exploration of how subjectivities are forged in the face of moral assessments and demands. Across the globe, ultrasonography and other technologies for prenatal screening offer prospective parents new information and present them with agonizing decisions never faced in the past. For anthropologists, this diagnostic capability raises important questions about individuality and collectivity, responsibility and choice. Arguing for more sustained anthropological attention to human quests for belonging, Haunting Images addresses existential questions of love and loss that concern us all.

“Avery Gordon’s stunningly original and provocatively imaginative book explores the connections linking horror, history, and haunting. ” —George Lipsitz “The text is of great value to anyone working on issues pertaining to the fantastic and the uncanny.” —American Studies International “Ghostly Matters immediately establishes Avery Gordon as a leader among her generation of social and cultural theorists in all fields. The sheer beauty of her language enhances an intellectual brilliance so daunting that some readers will mark the day they first read this book. One must go back many more years than most of us can remember to find a more important book.” —Charles Lemert Drawing on a range of sources, including the fiction of Toni Morrison and Luisa Valenzuela (He Who Searches), Avery Gordon demonstrates that past or haunting social forces control present life in different and more complicated ways than most social analysts presume. Written with a power to match its subject, Ghostly Matters has advanced the way we look at the complex intersections of race, gender, and class as they traverse our lives in sharp relief and shadowy manifestations. Avery F. Gordon is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Janice Radway is professor of literature at Duke University.

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.

Looking at texts including Jean Toomer's "Cane", Toni Morrison's "Beloved", James Baldwin's "Another Country", and 'Beat' poetry by Bob Kaufmann, this work describes the phenomena of haunting, displacement, and ghostliness as endemic to modern African American literature and culture.