The appearance of ghosts in art and popular culture has transformed throughout history. From the undead corpse of the medieval tradition to the transparent forms of photographic film, to the infrared and thermal images that now populate reality television, the paranormal has literally changed shape over the centuries.

In Poetics of the Paranormal Kevin Chabot articulates the idea of spectrality, demonstrating how the paranormal is far from a stable, metaphysical category: it is a dynamic and historically contingent discourse, the contours of which shift over time. Specific media, Chabot argues, present the ghost in distinct ways that emphasize the ghostly qualities of the medium and, conversely, the technological qualities of the ghost. Through detailed analyses of nineteenth-century spirit photography, horror films, ghost-hunting reality television, and the viral internet phenomenon Slender Man, Chabot shows how the paranormal both shapes and is shaped by media.

Exploring key historical shifts in contemporary media while providing a rich and novel theoretical framework, Poetics of the Paranormal addresses with renewed rigour the relationships between media, perception, temporality, and the elusive concept of the evidential.

Kevin Chabot is assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the Fountain School of Performing Arts, Dalhousie University.

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“Poetics of the Paranormal is an exhilarating journey through the ways the ghost is conjured both in media and in attempts to define the cultural and social meanings of these media. A must-read for anyone not yet convinced of the need to think about media history together with the cultural history of the paranormal.” Esther Peeren, University of Amsterdam