GHOST STORIES
The idea. Members of the metalepsis studio will gather November 8–10 for a weekend of discussions and presentations. Each member will have time to discuss their own thesis work, either “formally” (using 20-40 minutes to engage the group’s thoughts and comments) or informally (using “open sessions” on Saturday) to bring up personal work while a list of topics is discussed. The idea of “ghost stories” is that one session be devoted to a popular narrative that naturally involves metalepsis, where the frame, <…>, appears suddenly within the causal chain, <…><…>, creating a “site of exception.” Not all sites of exceptions involve ghosts, but all ghost hauntings involve sites of exception and the structure of metalepsis. By allowing media that move the telling of a ghost story into a “surrealist” setting, the wager is made that the traditional “nostalgic” components of the ghost story (dark and stormy nights, etc.) will fall to the side, revealing the essential components of metalepsis (dæmon, askesis, teserræ, etc.).
Rules of the game:
1. Each member of the metalepsis seminar must present a “ghost story,” but presentations may be made by groups of 2-4, appropriate especially where members serve as actors.
2. Individual presentations will have 5 minutes; group presentations are allowed 10 minutes.
3. The ghost story can be a personal remembrance of a past experience.
4. A member may choose a short ghost story and simply read it; or the story may be annotated; a commentary may be added.
5. “Alternative media” (video, shadow puppets, projections of backdrop scenery) are encouraged.
6. The relation of the ghost story to metalepsis must be clear, either in the structure of the story as presented or in the reflections/annotations.
7. Presentations get extra admiration if they impose a self-restriction, such as “ghost story without words,” “ghost story in 30 seconds,” “ghost story on the Planet X,” etc.
8. Members and member teams must compose a one-page prospectus that gives a title, a short synopsis, predicted duration of the presentation, and the names of team members.
Possibilities: It would be interesting to see how the site of exception can be used to stage a ghost story without an actual ghost … i.e. through the uncanny appearance or disappearance of objects, the re- arrangement of spaces, or disorientation motifs. Note that “magic” per se is not an allowable explanation in a ghost story, contrary to what one might think. The frame-of-mind of a ghost story is strictly factual, even scientific; this sets up a skeptical context against which a ghost or supernatural event appears as an unexplained exception. The audience is put into the position of “having to admit” that something uncanny has taken place, and any in the audience who have already given in to the temptation of believing in magic will not experience this effect of uncanniness. In narrative fiction, there is always some character who represents the scientific outlook, and it is this character that the audience must identify with, even in negative presentations such as the case with Dr. van Straaten in Dead of Night. The theme of the ghost story can be summed up as “I don’t want to believe this, but nonetheless it happened!” The skeptical frame loops around to create the exception within the interior, as in the case of the ventriloquist’s dummy.