Haunted Subjects

Why do the dead return? Are they lost to us forever, or do they remain part of the world of the living? Can we live with them, and can we live without them? Such questions emerge in popular films which depict ghosts, vampires and zombies. They are also key issues in psychoanalysis and recent theoret [...]
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Why do the dead return? Are they lost to us forever, or do they remain part of the world of the living? Can we live with them, and can we live without them? Such questions emerge in popular films which depict ghosts, vampires and zombies. They are also key issues in psychoanalysis and recent theoretical writing. This book examines the return of the dead in areas as diverse as film, Holocaust testimony, and in the work of thinkers such as Freud, Sartre, Agamben, Levinas, and de Man. It shows that the persistence of ghosts in recent films is related to broader philosophical and theoretical concerns, as explored in the work of Jacques Derrida and the psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok. Through a series of close analyses, the book suggests that it may as difficult for the living to get rid of the dead as it is to live without them.