Possessions

ISBN: 9780674018525

出版社: Harvard Univ Pr

出版年: 2005-10

页数: 320

定价: $ 24.86

装帧: Pap

内容简介

Possessions asks why this region just outside New York City became the locus for so many ghostly tales, and shows how these hauntings came to operate as a peculiar type of social memory whereby things lost, forgotten, or marginalised returned to claim possession of imaginations and territories. Reading Washington Irving's stories along with an array of narratives from local folklore and regional writings, Judith Richardson explores the causes and consequences of Hudson Valley hauntings to reveal how ghosts both evolve from specific historical contexts and are conjured to serve the needs of those they haunt. These tales of haunting, Richardson argues, are no mere echoes of the past but function in an ongoing, contentious politics of place.