Ghosts here and there : spectral resistance and the ethics of ghosts in postcolonial literature

Doctoral Thesis

In literature ghosts have a long history. They manifest themselves in a variety of forms. They are intriguing because of their undecidable nature—their association with death and afterlife, which are irredeemable and inexplicable to the living. Especially in postcolonial literature we encounter the presence of ghosts. Ghostly figures often serve as metaphors of return—the return of repressed history, which continues to haunt the present. Sometimes they mark a present absence of marginalized groups of people. Noting the ineluctable encounters between ghosts, memories, and subjectivities in postcolonial literature, this dissertation tries to reach a deeper and broader understanding of the narrative potential of the ghostly in spatial, cultural and ethical dimensions. By perceiving ghosts as metaphorical concepts, I incorporate a variety of notions of ghosts into my exploration of ‘spectral space,’ ‘ghost language,’ and ‘mediums.’ I also investigate how these ghost-related concepts...Show more In literature ghosts have a long history. They manifest themselves in a variety of forms. They are intriguing because of their undecidable nature—their association with death and afterlife, which are irredeemable and inexplicable to the living. Especially in postcolonial literature we encounter the presence of ghosts. Ghostly figures often serve as metaphors of return—the return of repressed history, which continues to haunt the present. Sometimes they mark a present absence of marginalized groups of people. Noting the ineluctable encounters between ghosts, memories, and subjectivities in postcolonial literature, this dissertation tries to reach a deeper and broader understanding of the narrative potential of the ghostly in spatial, cultural and ethical dimensions. By perceiving ghosts as metaphorical concepts, I incorporate a variety of notions of ghosts into my exploration of ‘spectral space,’ ‘ghost language,’ and ‘mediums.’ I also investigate how these ghost-related concepts function to illuminate a new mode of thinking about the realms of knowledge and ethics. I argue that ghosts are ethical subjects rather than objects of social constructions. They provide us a productive way of establishing a new ethics of ghosts, which is reconsidered as the ethics of how to live with and survive as ghosts.Show less

Ghost

Specter

Mediums

Space

Ethics

Postcolonial literature

Minority literature