Ghostly Alterities analyses the meaning of ghostliness in con-temporary Anglophone novels - Patricia Grace's Baby No-Eyes (1998), Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986), Vivienne Cleven's Her Sister's Eye (2002), Ben Okri's The Famished Road (1991), Pat Barker's The Ghost Road (1995) - in which the figure of the ghost is often entrusted with the task of questioning Western culture and history. After an in-troductory chapter which investigates Freud's concept of the un-canny along with theoretical issues raised by Iain Chambers and Jacques Derrida, Ghostly Alterities discusses the novels from different critical orientations (postcolonialism, poststructuralism and psychoanalysis), presenting ghostliness as intersecting with three major themes: the problem of the spectre's visibility and "bodily" nature; the particular melancholic state of mind the ghost can trigger which brings about a very special kind of (g)hospitality; the spectral nature of history and its relationship with the characters' personal memory.
- ISBN10 3898217140
- ISBN13 9783898217149
- Publish Date 22 August 2007
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country DE
- Imprint ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 196
- Language English