Contemporary Women’s Ghost Stories

Gina Wisker is an Associate Professor at the University of Bath, and Professor Emeritus of Higher Education & Contemporary Literature at the University of Brighton, UK. Gina has published twenty-six books and over one hundred and forty articles, including Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature (2007); Horror Fiction: An Introduction (2005); Margaret Atwood, an Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction (2012) and Contemporary Women’s Gothic Fiction (2016). Gina co-edits the online dark fantasy journal Dissections (2006-), Spokes poetry magazine (1990s-) and hosts ‘words and worlds’ readings for ICFA. Gina lives in Cambridge, has two sons and a feisty poodle.

• 1. Introduction: Lifting the veil on women’s ghost stories. - Section 1: Haunted texts, haunted houses, haunted lives. -  2. Haunted romance and haunted houses: Rebecca (du Maurier, 1938), The Haunting of Hill House (Jackson, 1959). - 3. Revengeful ghosts: The Woman in Black (Hill, 1983), Beloved (Morrison, 1987). - Section 2: Possession. - 4. True love as possession: Ashputtle (Carter, 1987), Lady Oracle (Atwood, 1976), The Greatcoat (Dunmore, 2012), The Glass Bottle Trick (Hopkinson, 2000). - 5. The Spectral voice: In The Red Kitchen (Roberts, 1990), Affinity (Waters, 1999), Beyond Black (Mantel, 2005). - 6. Domestic hauntings: The Little Stranger (Waters, 2009), Birdcage Walk (Dunmore, 2017), The Stopped Heart (Myerson, 2016). Section  3: Traumas of  Place: Postcolonial Hauntings. - 7. Postcolonial hauntings and urban Gothic in Singapore and Malaysia: The Serpent’s Tooth (Lim, 1982), The Bondmaid (Lim, 1992), Haunting (Lim, 1981), The Black Isle (Tan, 2012), Ponti (Teo, 2018), House of Aunts (Cho, 2014), The Crocodile Fury (Yahp, 1992). - 8. Traumas of place, travel, hauntology: Novel without a Name (Duong, 1995), Daughters of the House (Roberts, 1992), The Winter Ghosts (Mosse, 2010). - 9. Visits and visitations:  A Visit (Jackson, 1950), Ghost Summer (Due, 2015), Her Fearful Symmetry (Niffenegger, 2009), Hotel World (Smith, 2001).- 10. Conclusion: Breaking boundaries, leaking truths, pressing issues: Ghost Wall (Moss, 2018).