Haunting is a form of un/knowing.

The 7th issue of FORUM engages with haunting and related concepts such as the uncanny, spectrality and the trace by looking at a variety of different texts and contexts. A spirited piece on clipping as an instance of spectral writing is followed by reflections on the apparition in its wide-ranging ontological, epistemological and ethical significance. The articles offer spectral readings of different media from literature and film to the radio and apply the idea of haunting to a variety of topics and issues including intertextuality in Ackroyd, Shakespeare’s agentive objects, the palimpsestic poetics of Argento’s Opera, the spectres of radio technology, post-memory and the Holocaust, and the ethics of Dicken’s ghostly Christmas.

In its entirety, the issue powerfully illustrates the manifold uses of haunting as a means of approaching that which is effaced or absent, but nevertheless makes itself known in unexpected and disruptive ways.

Editors: Jack Burton & Jana Funke