Download or read book Haunting Experiences written by Diane Goldstein and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend written by June Michele Pulliam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With entries that range from specific works to authors, folklore, and popular culture (including music, film, television, urban legend, and gaming), this book provides a single-volume resource on all things ghostly in the United States and in other countries. The concept of ghosts has been an ongoing and universal element in human culture as far back as recorded history can document. In more modern popular culture and entertainment, ghosts are a popular mainstay—from A Christmas Carol and Casper the Friendly Ghost to The Amityville Horror, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, and Ghost Whisperer. This book comprehensively examines ghost and spirit phenomena in all its incarnations to provide readers with a holistic perspective on the subject. It presents insightful information about the contribution of a specific work or author to establish or further the evolution of ghost lore, rather than concentrating solely on the film, literature, music, or folklore itself. The book focuses on ghosts in western culture but also provides information about spirit phenomena and lore in international settings, as many of the trends in popular culture dealing with ghosts and spirits are informed by authors and filmmakers from Germany, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom. The writers and editors are experts and scholars in the field and enthusiastic fans of ghost lore, ghost films, ghost hunting, and urban legends, resulting in entries that are informative and engaging—and make this the most complete and current resource on ghost and spirit lore available.
Download or read book Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend written by June Michele Pulliam and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ghosts are the only monsters that most people actually believe in." A folklorist friend of mine said this to me when I was in the early stages of working on this project. His words really colored the scope of this book, which in its entries not only explains certain ghost lore and ghost-related phenomena, but considers the psychological and sociological reasons that representations of the ghost exist almost by necessity in different cultures and throughout time. Of course, most of the entries deal with tales and motifs associated with legend and popular culture, but readers of this text should be cognizant that despite the nature of these tales, such stories of ghosts and hauntings are believed by many. This makes the ghost a different sort of monster. While there are extensive bodies of folklore about zombies and vampires, most people in modern societies do not believe them to be real--these same people who rationally deny the possible existence of vampires and zombies are also the same people who will admit, in confidence, that they experienced what they call a feeling, something not quite right, while touring a plantation home that is reputed to be haunted, or while explaining that they saw a parent's image, which appeared to them on the night of his/her death. The television genre that can be termed paranormal television attests to this belief in ghosts: the vast majority of these programs concern ghost hunters who go in search of the truth behind a legend of a haunting, or seek to debunk a medium who claims to be able to speak to the dead"--
Download or read book Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend written by June Michele Pulliam and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ghosts are the only monsters that most people actually believe in." A folklorist friend of mine said this to me when I was in the early stages of working on this project. His words really colored the scope of this book, which in its entries not only explains certain ghost lore and ghost-related phenomena, but considers the psychological and sociological reasons that representations of the ghost exist almost by necessity in different cultures and throughout time. Of course, most of the entries deal with tales and motifs associated with legend and popular culture, but readers of this text should be cognizant that despite the nature of these tales, such stories of ghosts and hauntings are believed by many. This makes the ghost a different sort of monster. While there are extensive bodies of folklore about zombies and vampires, most people in modern societies do not believe them to be real--these same people who rationally deny the possible existence of vampires and zombies are also the same people who will admit, in confidence, that they experienced what they call a feeling, something not quite right, while touring a plantation home that is reputed to be haunted, or while explaining that they saw a parent's image, which appeared to them on the night of his/her death. The television genre that can be termed paranormal television attests to this belief in ghosts: the vast majority of these programs concern ghost hunters who go in search of the truth behind a legend of a haunting, or seek to debunk a medium who claims to be able to speak to the dead"--
Download or read book Subversive Spirits written by Robin Roberts and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-01-17 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The supernatural has become extraordinarily popular in literature, television, and film. Vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, and wizard have become staples of entertainment industries, and many of these figures have received extensive critical attention. But one figure has remained in the shadows--the female ghost. Inherently liminal, often literally invisible, the female ghost has nevertheless appeared in all genres. Subversive Spirits: The Female Ghost in British and American Popular Culture brings this figure into the light, exploring her cultural significance in a variety of media from 1926 to 2014. Robin Roberts argues that the female ghost is well worth studying for what she can tell us about feminine subjectivity in cultural contexts. Subversive Spirits examines appearances of the female ghost in heritage sites, theater, Hollywood film, literature, and television in the United States and the United Kingdom. What holds these disparate female ghosts together is their uncanny ability to disrupt, illuminate, and challenge gendered assumptions. As with other supernatural figures, the female ghost changes over time, especially responding to changes in gender roles. Roberts's analysis begins with comedic female ghosts in literature and film and moves into horror by examining the successful play The Woman in Black and the legend of the weeping woman, La Llorona. Roberts then situates the canonical works of Maxine Hong Kingston and Toni Morrison in the tradition of the female ghost to explore how the ghost is used to portray the struggle and pain of women of color. Roberts further analyzes heritage sites that use the female ghost as the friendly and inviting narrator for tourists. The book concludes with a comparison of the British and American versions of the television hit Being Human, where the female ghost expands her influence to become a mother and savior to all humanity.
Download or read book A History of Ghosts written by Peter H. Aykroyd and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Aykroyd spent his childhood watching his family's parlor séances through the crack of a basement door. Here, for the first time, Aykroyd tells the strange and delightful story that inspired his son, Dan, to make the mega-hit, Ghostbusters. Part history, part family legend, A History of Ghosts starts in 1848 in upstate New York, where the spiritualist craze first began. Aykroyd introduces the reader to notable mediums while telling the story of the development of spiritualism, interweaving a personal history marked by a fascination with ghosts and spirits with the larger narrative about the role the paranormal has played in our culture. Such legendary figures as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini appear and vanish. Everyone loves a good ghost story. Successful TV shows such as Medium and Ghost Hunters are proof that our national obsession with ghosts is here to stay. Millions of Americans believe in the paranormal—and even skeptics have heard a bump in the night and suspected it might be something supernatural.
Download or read book The Paranormal and Popular Culture written by Darryl Caterine and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-18 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in preternatural and supernatural themes has revitalized the Gothic tale, renewed explorations of psychic powers and given rise to a host of social and religious movements based upon claims of the fantastical. And yet, in spite of this widespread enthusiasm, the academic world has been slow to study this development. This volume rectifies this gap in current scholarship by serving as an interdisciplinary overview of the relationship of the paranormal to the artefacts of mass media (e.g. novels, comic books, and films) as well as the cultural practices they inspire. After an introduction analyzing the paranormal’s relationship to religion and entertainment, the book presents essays exploring its spiritual significance in a postmodern society; its (post)modern representation in literature and film; and its embodiment in a number of contemporary cultural practices. Contributors from a number of discplines and cultural contexts address issues such as the shamanistic aspects of Batman and lesbianism in vampire mythology. Covering many aspects of the paranormal and its effect on popular culture, this book is an important statement in the field. As such, it will be of utmost interest to scholars of religious studies as well as media, communication, and cultural studies.
Download or read book Paranormal Media written by Annette Hill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paranormal has gone mainstream.Beliefs are on the rise, with almost half of the British population, and two thirds of Americans, claiming to believe in extra sensory perceptions and hauntings. Psychic magazines like Spirit and Destiny, television shows such as Fringe, Ghost Whisperer and Most Haunted, ghost-cams and e-poltergeists, bestselling books on mind, body and spirit, and magicians like Derren Brown have moved from the outer limits to the centre of popular culture, turning paranormal beliefs and scepticism into revenue streams. Paranormal Media offers a unique, timely exploration of the extraordinary, unexplained and supernatural in popular culture, looking in unusual places in order to understand this phenomenon. Early spirit forms such as magic lantern shows or the spirit photograph are re-imagined as a search for extraordinary experiences in reality TV, ghost tourism, and live shows. Through a popular cultural ethnography, and critical analysis in social and cultural theory, this ground-breaking book by Annette Hill presents an original and rigorous examination of people's experiences of spirits and magic. In popular culture, people are players in an orchestral movement about what happens to us when we die. In a very real sense the audience is the show. This book is the story of audiences and their participation in a show about matters of life and death. Paranormal Media will be a highly interesting read for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics, on a wide range of television, media, cultural studies, and sociology courses.
Download or read book The Amityville Horror written by Jay Anson and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star).
Download or read book Aliens Ghosts and Cults written by Bill Ellis and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2003 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ghosts written by Aaron Frisch and published by Creative Educ. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A basic but fun exploration of ghosts-spirits known for their haunting behavior-including how they come to exist, their weaknesses, and memorable examples from pop culture"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans written by Jeanne deLavigne and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2013-10-07 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “He struck a match to look at his watch. In the flare of the light they saw a young woman just at Pitot’s elbow—a young woman dressed all in black, with pale gold hair, and a baby sleeping on her shoulder. She glided to the edge of the bridge and stepped noiselessly off into the black waters.”—from Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans Ghosts are said to wander along the rooftops above New Orleans’ Royal Street, the dead allegedly sing sacred songs in St. Louis Cathedral, and the graveyard tomb of a wealthy madam reportedly glows bright red at night. Local lore about such supernatural sightings, as curated by Jeanne deLavigne in her classic Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, finds the phantoms of bitter lovers, vengeful slaves, and menacing gypsies haunting nearly every corner of the city, from the streets of the French Quarter to Garden District mansions. Originally printed in 1944, all forty ghost stories and the macabre etchings of New Orleans artist Charles Richards appear in this new edition. Drawing largely on popular legend dating back to the 1800s, deLavigne provides vivid details of old New Orleans with a cast of spirits that represent the ethnic mélange of the city set amid period homes, historic neighborhoods, and forgotten taverns. Combining folklore, newspaper accounts, and deLavigne’s own voice, these phantasmal tales range from the tragic—brothers, lost at sea as children, haunt a chapel on Thomas Street in search of their mother—to graphic depictions of torture, mutilation, and death. Folklorist and foreword contributor Frank A. de Caro places the writer and her work in context for modern readers. He uncovers new information about deLavigne’s life and describes her book’s pervasive lingering influence on the Crescent City’s culture today.
Download or read book Ghosthunters written by John B Kachuba and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2007-07-13 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Ghosthunters, John Kachuba explores some of America's great haunts while he introduces us to the people who actually go searching for ghosts. His writing takes the reader on a haunted journey—it's like riding shotgun with him while he creeps through haunted asylums, abandoned farmhouses, and historic battlefields, and speaks with some of the biggest names in this field of study. If something goes bump in the night, have no fear—John Kachuba won't be far behind." —Jeff Belanger, founder of Ghostvillage.com and author of The World's Most Haunted Places Why do ghosts fascinate so many people? To answer that question, writer and paranormal researcher John Kachuba aka “The Ghosthunter” investigates haunted locations throughout the country and interviews scores of people who have had paranormal encounters. The author discovers a growing interest in ghosts today, which has spurred an American pop culture phenomenon based on the supernatural. Combining his case reports of actual hauntings, discussions with leading figures in the paranormal world, and stories about related subjects–buying ghosts on eBay, buying and selling haunted houses, ghost tourism–Ghosthunters presents an intriguing and witty look at America’s paranormal world. Set off down the trail of the paranormal and read about: A ghost hunt in a Connecticut coffee shop with lay religious demonologist David Considine. Spending the night with the ghost of Miss Lily at St. Augustine, Florida’s historic St. Francis Inn. Spiritualist minister Rev. Rose Vanden Eynden’s abilities to talk with the dead. The search for the headless inmate on a ghost hunt at West Virginia’s Moundsville State Penitentiary.
Download or read book Ghostland written by Colin Dickey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places--and deep into the dark side of our history.
Download or read book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow written by Washington Irving and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-10-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Washington Irving
Download or read book Ghosts in the Middle Ages written by Jean-Claude Schmitt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-04-28 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating study, Schmitt examines the significance of the widespread belief in ghosts during the Middle Ages and traces the imaginative, political, and religious contexts of these everyday haunts. Ghosts were pitiful or terrifying, usually solitary, creatures who arose from their tombs to haunt their friends and relatives. Including numerous color illustrations of ghosts and their trappings, this book presents a unique and intriguing look at medieval culture. 28 color plates.
Download or read book Obake written by Glen Grant and published by Mutual Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of twelve ghost stories leads readers into a world of obake, supernatural creatures, fireballs, choking ghosts at the University of Hawai'i dormitories the "faceless woman" of the Waialae Drive-in Theater, the "green lady" of Wahiawa, the mo'o wahine or supernatural lizard woman, inugami or dog spirit possession, mysterious occurrences in Kaimuki and Kipapa and other "chicken skin" encounters in Hawai'i. Invisible Ink calls this book true in spirit to the many ghostly traditions of the Islands.
