Haunted Detectives: the Mysteries of American Trauma
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HAUNTED DETECTIVES: THE MYSTERIES OF AMERICAN TRAUMA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Brian R. Hauser, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Jared Gardner, Adviser Professor James Phelan ____________________________________ Professor Linda Mizejewski Adviser English Graduate Program Copyright by Brian R. Hauser 2008 ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I investigate American motion picture narratives from the 1990s in which detectives encounter the supernatural. These narratives did not originate during this decade, but there were a remarkable number of them compared to previous periods. I argue that the supernatural is often analogous to personal, national, or cultural trauma. I further suggest that a detective investigating the supernatural stands in for the psychoanalyst, who studies and treats this trauma. I then trace the origins of the supernatural detective in history, as well as in British and American popular fiction. To begin, I discuss Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999) as an example of a supernatural detective, who is himself traumatized but who also manages to solve the supernatural mystery in the eponymous village. That solution points to the obscured narrative of women’s rights in the early-American republic. Next, I suggest that spaces can be traumatized like people. I introduce the concept of the chronotope of the traumatized space, which I then apply to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and its various film and television adaptations to argue that these influential haunted house tales have helped repress scientific research into the paranormal as a reputable field of inquiry and the paranormal researcher as an admirable calling. Next, the entire country of the United States is portrayed as a traumatized space in The X-Files , which presents its ii primary supernatural detective, Agent Fox Mulder, as an analyst of the state, exposing the national guilt concerning the treatment of Native Americans. Finally, I investigate several turn-of-the-millennium fake documentaries. I argue that in The Last Broadcast (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and the novel House of Leaves (2000), rational investigators are more likely to meet impossible moments than they are to meet supernatural entities. These impossible moments reflect a growing desensitization to the slippage between televisual media and the world it represents. I conclude that the surprising prevalence of these narratives during the 1990s is due to a resonance between the mechanics of trauma and memory and the patterns of millennial thinking in the United States in the 1990s. iii Dedicated to Christina iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A remarkable number of people assisted in the completion of this project both directly and indirectly. First and foremost, I must thank my wife, Christina Xydias, for her constant inspiration to me as a scholar, as a teacher, and as a human being. I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their unwavering support, constructive criticism, and exemplary collegiality throughout my career in graduate school. I owe the greatest debt of thanks to Professor Jared Gardner, whose advice and mentorship were always timely and spot on. University Distinguished Professor James Phelan and Professor Linda Mizejewski were also enormously generous and helpful throughout all phases of the process. In particular, I want to thank my entire committee for their assistance before, during, and after the year of active duty military service that interrupted my doctoral program. My success in graduate school would not have been possible without the unflagging love and support of an extensive list of family and friends. I could never have arrived at college or graduate school without the guidance and example of my parents, Russell and Patrice Hauser; I owe my love of reading to them, because they never let me leave a book store empty-handed. I also thank my brother, Kurt; the two of us have continually encouraged one another in our pursuit of higher education. v The Department of English Graduate Program has been an amazingly helpful and ever-present guide through graduate school. I extend very special thanks to Professor Claire Simmons, Professor Susan Williams, Professor Sebastian Knowles, and especially to Kathleen Griffin. I also wish to thank those current and former members of the faculty of the Department of English at The Ohio State University, who, though they were not on my committee, certainly helped me to become the scholar, writer, and teacher I am today: Professor George Hartley, Professor Suellynn Duffey, Professor Elizabeth Hewitt, Professor Lee K. Abbott, Professor Lee Martin, and Professor Tony Libby. During the writing of this dissertation, I was supported with a teaching associateship through Ohio State’s Undergraduate International Studies Program. I would like to thank the Director of that program, Professor Anthony Mughan, and the Associate Director, Karlene Foster, for their support. I was further supported with an administrative associateship through the Film Studies Program, and I would like to thank Professor John E. Davidson for his continued support and encouragement. I would like to thank Professor Sharon Yang of Worcester College, Massechusetts, who accepted my first professional publication, which is a condensed version of Chapter 4 of this dissertation. Some of the research in Chapter 5 was aided immensely by Alun Ford of the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature at the Senate House Library of the University of London and the estate of Upton Sinclair. Early stages of my research were presented at the annual conferences of the Popular Culture Association (2008) and the Popular Culture Association in the South (2005 & 2007). My thanks to both of these organizations for their intellectual and financial support; in particular, I would like to thank Diane Calhoun-French of PCAS and John F. Bratzel of vi PCA. My research was also assisted enormously by my attendance at the 2006 Space, Haunting, Discourse conference in Karlstad, Sweden. I would like to thank The Ohio State University Graduate School for helping to underwrite my trip. Last but not least, throughout my doctoral candidacy, I have been privileged to be a member of an informal intellectual and artistic “salon” made up of Columbus residents from a variety of disciplines and occupations. Our weekly gatherings provided profound inspiration and intellectual challenge to me on innumerable occasions. Though the total membership of this salon numbered in the dozens over the years, I must express particular gratitude (in addition to that already given to my wife, Christina) to Andy Vogel, whose wit, learning, and friendship were always available for my benefit. vii VITA June 1, 1972………………………………Born - Charlotte, Michigan 1994……………………………………….B.A. English, The Ohio State University 2001……………………………………….M.A. English, The Ohio State University 1999-present.....…………………………...Graduate Teaching and Administrative Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Research Publication 1. Hauser, Brian. “’Vanishing Americans’: James Fenimore Cooper’s Detectives and the Trauma of Alien Invasion in The X-Files .” Ed. Sharon Yang. The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the Story, Unraveling the Lie to Find the Truth . Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 66-90. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Area: Film & Media Studies viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication.......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments................................................................................................................v Vita................................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures.................................................................................................................... xi Chapters: 1. Introduction.............................................................................................................1 1.1 The supernatural detective and the allegorical moment .................................1 1.2 The origins of the supernatural detective in fact and fiction ........................16 1.3 The mysteries of American trauma...............................................................30 2. Sleepy Hollow and the haunted detective..............................................................34 2.1 Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow .........................................................................34 2.2 Supernatural detectives and trauma ..............................................................40 2.3 Sleepy Hollow and the trauma of the supernatural detective ........................45 2.4 The rational and the irrational collide...........................................................60 2.5 “The millennium is upon us”........................................................................75 3. The chronotope of the traumatized space .............................................................80 3.1 Scarred spaces...............................................................................................80 3.2 The