Theatre and Ghosts: Materiality, Performance and Modernity

Theatre and Ghosts brings theatre and performance history into dialogue with the flourishing field of spectrality studies. The contributors include internationally-renowned theatre scholars who have shaped the study of cultural memory. Essays shed new light on spectral economies, geo-politics, and histories of acting; they span from adaptations of the Gothic to the operations and technologies of the modern and new supernatural, addressing topics such as ghost-seeing, horror shows, mediums, revenants, haunted sites, spiritual worlds, and acting as an incarnation of the dead.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Theatre and Spectrality; Mary Luckhurst and Emilie Morin PART I: GHOSTS, STAGE ADAPTATION AND TECHNOLOGY 1. 'Charles Dickens and the Invention of the Modern Stage Ghost'; Marvin Carlson 2. 'Gothic Adaptation and the Stage Ghost'; Nathalie Wolfram PART II: SPECTRAL ECONOMIES 3. 'Apprehending the Spectral: Hauntology and Precarity in Caryl Churchill's Plays'; Rachel Clements 4. 'Heritage, Capital and Culture: The Ghost of 'Sarah' at the Bristol Old Vic'; Catherine Hindson 5. 'Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?: American Ghost Shows of the Twentieth Century'; Beth A. Kattelman PART III: MODERNITY, GENDER AND GHOST AESTHETICS 6. 'Masculinity, Haunting and Twentieth-Century American Realism'; Paul D. Streufert 7. "Pretty Ghost, a Duet': On Dying While You Still Look Good'; Joseph Roach PART IV: ACTING, ABSENCE AND REMATERIALIZATION 8. 'A Restoration Vanishing Act: The Case of Thomas Betterton's Groin'; Michael Cordner 9. 'Giving Up the Ghost: The Actor's Body as Haunted House'; Mary Luckhurst 10. 'Michael Chekhov: The Spiritual Realm and the Invisible Body'; Tom Cornford 11. 'Haunting Shakespeare, or King Lear Meets Alice'; Peter Holland Select Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Mary Luckhurst is Professor of Artistic Research and Creative Practice at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She co-founded the new Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York, UK, and is a pioneer in practice as research. She is a playwright, director and an authority on articulating the processes and practices of writing, acting and directing for theatre. She is the author and editor of many books including Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre, Theatre and Celebrity, 1660-2000, On Acting, On Directing, Playimg for Real and Caryl Churchill. The Higher Education Academy awarded her a National Teaching Fellowship and made her an International Scholar in 2013 in recognition of her outstanding international contribution to teaching and research in drama and performance. Emilie Morin is Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UK. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary British and Irish literature, theatre history, and European modernism. Her monograph Samuel Beckett and the Problem of Irishness was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009.

Review :
"Theatre scholars have been slow to explore the longstanding connections between theatre, ghost and other forms of haunting. This fascinating collection of essays will be hugely welcomed by all students and researchers in the emerging field of spectrality studies." - Gay McAuley, Honorary Professor, Department of Performance Studies, University of Sydney, Australia "Through stirring contributions on topics ranging from the intricacies of staging nineteenth-century apparitions and the symbolic memory work performed by the 'pretty ghost' to the luminescent spectacle of the midnight spook show, Theatre and Ghosts probes the enduring yet to date under-illuminated association of performance and spectrality. Reflecting on Anglo-American theatrical ghosts and their many guises, as well as the ghostliness of theatre as a medium, this engaging volume makes a vital contribution to the burgeoning field of spectrality studies." - Esther Peeren, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, co-editor with Maria del Pilar Blanco of The Spectralities Reader (2013).