The Spectral Metaphor : Living Ghosts and the Agency of Invisibility

What does it mean to live as a ghost? Exploring spectrality as a metaphor in the contemporary British and American cultural imagination, Peeren proposes that certain subjects - migrants, servants, mediums and missing persons - are perceived as living ghosts and examines how this figuration can signify both dispossession and empowerment or agency. What does it mean to live as a ghost? Exploring spectrality as a potent metaphor in the contemporary British and American cultural imagination, Peeren proposes that certain subjects - migrants, servants, mediums and missing persons - are perceived as living ghosts and examines how this impacts on their ability to develop agency. From detailed readings of films (Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things, Nick Broomfield's Ghosts and Robert Altman's Gosford Park), a television series (Upstairs, Downstairs) and novels (Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black, Sarah Waters's Affinity, Ian McEwan's The Child in Time and Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park) emerges an inventive account of how the spectral metaphor, in its association with various modes of invisibility, can signify both dispossession and empowerment. In reworking the spectral insights of, among others, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Negri and Achille Mbembe, Peeren suggests new responses to the practices of marginalization and exploitation that characterize our globalized world Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 9 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: The Spectral Metaphor 12 1 Forms of Invisibility: Undocumented Migrant Workers as Living Ghosts in Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things and Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts 44 2 Spectral Servants and Haunting Hospitalities: Upstairs, Downstairs, Gosford Park and Babel 87 3 Spooky Mediums and the Redistribution of the Sensible: Sarah Waters’s Affinity and Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black 121 4 Ghosts of the Missing: Multidirectional Haunting and Self-Spectralization in Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time and Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park 155 Afterword: How to Survive as a Living Ghost? 191 Notes 196 Bibliography 209 Index 219 Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: The Spectral Metaphor....Pages 1-32 Forms of Invisibility: Undocumented Migrant Workers as Living Ghosts in Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things and Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts....Pages 33-75 Spectral Servants and Haunting Hospitalities: Upstairs, Downstairs, Gosford Park and Babel....Pages 76-109 Spooky Mediums and the Redistribution of the Sensible: Sarah Waters’s Affinity and Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black....Pages 110-143 Ghosts of the Missing: Multidirectional Haunting and Self-Spectralization in Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time and Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park....Pages 144-179 Afterword: How to Survive as a Living Ghost?....Pages 180-184 Back Matter....Pages 185-216 "This is an important and original work of criticism. The perspective it adopts is fresh and gripping; the application of the 'spectral metaphor' to non-literal situations, such as the 'invisibility' of migrant workers and domestic servants, expands the sense of 'spectrality' in fascinating new ways; the scholarship and theoretical acumen are superb throughout; the written style of the work is elegant, precise and accessible; and the political and ethical implications of the study are lucidly spelled out, without any attempt prematurely to resolve the most difficult issues."--Colin Davis, Royal Holloway University of London, UK