This is a thorough and entertaining overview of ghostlore collected on U.S. college campuses. The author, Elizabeth Tucker, an associate professor of English at Binghampton University, is to be congratulated for her approach to students, who are treated with the respect and enthusiasm that comes from her professional experience in Residential Life. Tucker believes that “ghost stories entertain and educate students, offering a unique blend of excitement, mystery, and danger. When students gather to tell ghost stories, they get to know one another better” (4). The existence of the supernatural is not addressed here; belief, or the prospect of belief, begins with an emphasis on sensory evidence (43). Examples of such are represented by students’ own stories about ghosts, textualized with little to no reference to their performance. This is unfortunate, but Tucker’s collection strategy deserves some praise, especially her willingness to engage with Facebook and IRC chat. Indeed her sensitivity to the role of video is evident (204); the absence of websites such as YouTube from her analysis is indicative of the speed of technological development rather than any lapse in scholarship.
The inclusion of new media does not detract attention from what remains an essentially text-centric approach to material. While this strategy allows Tucker to cover a variety of legends drawn from an impressive range of university archives, fieldwork, interviews, and the published record, her material is not rooted in the context of its production, and as a result her interpretations are somewhat generalized. This is especially evident when one considers the extensive changes student life has undergone in the period her evidence is collated from, typically the early 1960s up to publication. Indeed, there is little awareness of the varieties of student experience, which are standardized throughout. Not everyone, for example, goes to University from living with their parents (73). While I can accept that ghost stories may “initiate students into college life and young adulthood” (5), I am suspicious of the full-scale transcription of van Gennep’s (1960) and Turner’s (1969) theories of rites of passage and liminality to American college students. In one section, residential halls, attics, basements, elevators, and bathrooms are branded “liminal” (36-38), and Tucker compares Ndembu tribespeople to American students (50). The application of such theory requires more care.
Despite this, Tucker’s monograph is a welcome contribution to the literature on student and university life, which remains under-researched, especially within Folklore, where Simon Bronner’s Piled Higher & Deeper (1995) remains the standard, and indeed, only book dedicated to the subject. Bronner’s general reading of student folklore as a cautionary means of dealing with the dangers that lie ahead (1995:21) is reiterated by Tucker (73). This is undoubtedly a function in legends that deal, for example, with death by drug ingestion, but it is not necessarily the only or most important reason to participate in the legend. Greater consideration of the fun-orientated values of college life as suggested by anthropologies of student experience is required (Moffatt 1989; Nathan 2005). The joy students receive from attempting to encounter the supernatural only begins to receive fair treatment in the chapter that addresses Bill Ellis’ work on “legend trips,” or as they are called here “legend quests” (182). Perhaps Tucker’s emphasis on the trials and tribulations of student life owes something to her experience in Residential Life, where the difficulties of being a student may perhaps be more apparent.
For each of her legend texts, Tucker applies the most “appropriate kind of theory” (5). Linda Dégh, referred to as the author’s mentor (vii), is often referenced, but Alan Dundes’ psychoanalytical approach is Tucker’s strongest and most obvious influence. The reader’s opinion of Haunted Halls will ultimately depend on how far they are willing to accept this style of folklore analysis. For example, a series of forty-two narratives concerning ghosts in mirrors, all collected between 1999 and 2003 from one residence, are interpreted via a “modified form of Jungian analysis” (94) which sees the application of constructs such as the anima/animus archetypes and “the shadow” (104). To my mind, such an interpretation is prescriptive and a misuse of what remains a sizeable and impressive corpus of collected narratives. If, as Tucker insists, she is asking “what makes these texts meaningful to students” (4), I am not convinced that Jungian analysis is the best answer. Rather than seeing allegory and metaphor in her textual evidence, it would perhaps have been more relevant to concentrate on observable evidence in the fieldwork stage. A greater emphasis on the American context of these legends is also warranted, specifically those practices common to American higher education, such as having a roommate. How does the initiatory experience of “lights out” impact on ghost stories? When Tucker does mention such local details they are not always explored in full. For example, a connection is posited between exploring the supernatural and living a no-drugs, no-alcohol lifestyle (98), but only in relation to one specific residence.
This book does contain some excellent stories and some insightful analysis. I appreciated, particularly, the chapters on the cultural hauntings of Indian ghosts and graveyards (153) and the extent of the author’s research on the social norms of courtship and love on campuses (115). There are, apparently, many statues and sculptures connected to student virginity (29), and many college ghost stories frequently include “precise architectural details” (110). Some of Tucker’s most interesting observations are concerned with the manner in which institutions use or co-opt student stories about ghosts to aid with campus marketing or community-building (124-5, 131). Such matters deserve further research, as indeed does the interplay between popular games and films and college ghostlore (169).
Tucker’s well-written text is ably illustrated by artistic photographs shot by her husband, Geoffrey Gould. Indeed, the book is well produced by the University Press of Mississippi. As a minor quibble, the typesetting is occasionally confusing; when the text of a ghost story is introduced, its title is too similar to those used to mark the more important sections. This does not detract from the quality of some of the stories, many of which remain memorable. Personal favorites include a pot-smoking ghost (70), a headless buffalo named Stroud (173), a “judgemental duck spirit who disapproves of beer drinking” (12), and of course the ghost of Richard Dorson as witnessed by Nancy McEntire and Henry Glassie (51-3).
Works Cited
Bronner, Simon J. Piled Higher and Deeper: The Folklore of Student Life. Little Rock: August House Publishers, 1995.
van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960.
Moffatt, M. Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
Nathan, Rebekah. My Freshman Year : What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Turner, Victor W. The Ritual Process : Structure and Anti-structure. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.
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[Review length: 1137 words • Review posted on May 6, 2008]