Hailey

JWU

[nomadicnoesis]

Honors Attribute Essay: Demons and Feminism

The impact of second wave feminism in the 1960’s and ‘70s wasn’t present in just politics or the workforce, but was an all-encompassing revolution that dominated the culture of the era. One of the last places people may think to look for the impacts of the sexual revolution and female liberation that marked second wave feminism is the horror genre of the film industry, but it is this exact space where the subsequent culture war that broke out amid the feminist movement got worked out within American society.

 A deeper analysis of the 1973 film The Exorcist reveals just how influential second wave feminism and its clash with American tradition and religion had on the horror movie industry of the era. While the film portrays a family’s battle to rid the demon from within their daughter it also portrays the battle between the new age feminist and traditional American values, and just like the fight with the demon it is a struggle until the very end of the film to see who will come out victorious in the culture war. The start of the film opens up with the introduction of the mother, Chris, who is an actress starring in a movie that appears to be about the Vietnam War protests. Right away it becomes clear that Chris is the provider in her family that is considerably well off and that her daughter, Regan’s, father is not in the picture. At this point, Chris’ portrayal as a “new woman” who has broken away from the traditional family unit could be seen as a win for second wave feminism and how it is viewed in popular culture, but over the course of the film, just as Regan begins to change so does The Exorcist’s view of female liberation and the sexual revolution.

Regan’s possession became the vessel through which females, especially teenage girls, were sexualized and demonized during the culture war. Regan is introduced to the audience as the average twelve year old girl, whose main interests involved asking her mother for a pony. But once the demon in their house enters her she transforms into society’s worst nightmare: a hyper-sexual teen. As W. Scott Poole states in Haunted Houses, “The Exorcist used the emerging sexuality of a teenage girl as a metaphor for diabolical evil” (pg. 170). Regan’s possession causes her to act overtly sexual and profane, which leaves her mother, Chris, scrambling to find the best doctors and specialists money can buy to help cure her daughter. But as the film proves, all of Chris’ self earned money cannot save her daughter from the evil residing inside her. While The Exorcist uses demons and possession to scare its audiences the real fear it’s hinting at is the ‘60s and ‘70s cultural anxiety toward sexualized teens and liberated women. 

 Chris’ failure to cure Regan’s affliction becomes the film’s stance towards second wave feminism. A the start of the film she is a successful, well put together woman, but as Regan’s condition worsens she becomes more and more hysterical and desperate. She is then portrayed as needy and helpless and it isn’t until the introduction of Father Damien and religion that Regan has a chance at being saved. There is a point in the movie where Chris states that she isn’t religious, which is really a warning to the audience that if they aren’t religious and don’t adhere to the traditional family unit and values America had before second wave feminism then there’s no way they can protect their children, especially their teenage daughters, from diabolical evil. What appeared to be a win for second wave feminism and its showcase on the big screen ultimately reinforced the conservative counter- movement to the sexual revolution and women’s liberation. Through the character Damien Karras, The Exorcist suppresses America’s anxieties with its support of religion and a male figure in every home. When Chris, the new age feminist, realizes there is nothing she can do to help Regan she turns to the church who of course have a way to end Regan’s possession. By bringing a male presence into the home the film solidifies its stance on having a traditional family unit with a man as the head of the house. As Brian Riley discusses in his analysis of the film,“By positing the possessed Regan’s rebellion against ‘normality’ as ‘evil’—a rebellion that includes the release of sexuality as well as challenges to traditional authority figures—the text rather simplistically reaffirms the ‘rightness’ of the church, the conventional family, and patriarchy” (2013). Chris is viewed as incapable of helping her rebellious daughter and it takes the presence of the patriarchy to return their house to normal.

While the 1973 film The Exorcist showcases elements of the second wave feminism movement of the era by portraying the main character Chris as a single mother with a successful career it is actually an attempt to suppress the sexual revolution and female liberation by reaffirming the need of religion and a traditional family unit in every home. When Father Damien sacrifices his life for Regan and defeats the demon possessing her, it is the film proving that Chris, as a woman, could not have saved her daughter on her own. It is the film saying that no matter how successful Chris becomes on her own she is a failure because she cannot raise and protect her teenage daughter as a feminist. The backlash to second wave feminism in the 1960s and ‘70s was a conservative counter- revolution that reaffirmed America’s anxieties towards female liberation and sexual freedom, and horror films like The Exorcist were a space in popular culture that attempted to work these fears out, but ultimately supported tradition and the patriarchy. 

Works Cited

Riley, Brian. “Revisiting The Exorcist: The Forbidden Pleasures of Resistant Reading.” Response: The Digital Journal of Popular Culture Scholarship, Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association, 2013,

Poole, W. Scott. Monsters In America : Our Historical Obsessions with the Hideous and the Haunting. Waco, Tex. :Baylor University Press, 2011. Print.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #9- Final Thoughts

Over the course of this class I think I’ve watched more horror/ scary movies than I have in my whole life and I’m surprised to actually say I enjoyed all of them. Before this class I was absolutely terrified of anything labeled as horror and would never even attempt to watch it. But over the term my eyes have been opened to the diversity of horror and the supernatural and how important it really is for culture and the American psyche. Through the horror genre many very real cultural anxieties and fears are exemplified and able to get worked out. My favorite part of the course was getting to learn about the different supernatural creatures and how rooted in history they are. From zombies to werewolves to vampires the history of these creatures is from all across the globe, but through the medium of horror they are able to exemplify modern American fears. The biggest takeaway I have taken away from this class is that horror films are a great way to understand the tone of an era because horror is so much influenced by what is happening in society at the time. For me, horror and the supernatural have become another way to look at the history of different time periods to more fully understand the social climate of the United States. If I had to pick a favorite creature we looked at I think it would have to be demons because the late 1960s and 1970s when they first became prevalent was such an interesting and intense time in U.S. history. Films like The Exorcist from 1973 totally play into the cultural war between religion and tradition and women’s freedom and sexual liberation that was happening in society at the time. Overall, this class really changed my perspective on the genre of horror and supernatural creatures and I would recommend everyone, even those a little bit fearful, to take it! 

[nomadicnoesis]

Grant-Humphreys Mansion

On April 20th, my group visited the Grant-Humphreys Mansion in downtown Denver. The mansion is only a couple miles from the infamous Cheesman Park and is located in a neighborhood known as “Quality Hill”. The “Quality Hill” neighborhood was established around the turn of the twentieth century when wealthy socialites decided that the “Capitol Hill” neighborhood where they were living was becoming too middle class and decided to move a couple blocks and form a new neighborhood. The Grant-Humphreys Mansion was one of the first houses in “Quality Hill” as it was built in 1902 by former governor of Colorado, James Benton Grant. The neoclassical style home has three floors and thirty rooms. 

We were given a private tour of the mansion and our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of the Grant-Humphreys, including its supposed hauntedness.  Our guide, John, started the tour in the front room, next to the grand staircase, and explained to us the story of Cheesman Park and the high unlikely that any of the bodies found at the park would somehow be haunting the mansion. He mentioned that there were probably five spirits residing in the mansion and as we moved from room to room we learned more about them. 

One of the first rooms we entered was the parlor room on the main floor. John pointed out the stained glass windows created by Tiffany & Co. and the alcohol cabinet hidden in the wall used during Prohibition. Throughout the main floor were large portraits of the owners, Grant and Humphreys, and their wives. The Grant-Humphreys Mansion is a popular wedding venue, in part because of its incredible views of downtown and the mountains, but also because of its original vintage feel as the house has been very well maintained over the past 117 years. Walking around the mansion felt almost as if walking back in time, which added to its feeling of unheimlich. 

As we walked up the narrow staircase to the third floor that is when we all got a very unnerving feeling. The third floor is where the ghost activity is said to be the most present. It is on the third floor in the gun room where the most well known death took place. This is where wealthy owner Albert Humphreys died from a gunshot wound in 1927 while his wife was hosting a party downstairs. Besides the spirit of Humphreys on the third floor there is also mention of his granddaughter’s ghost and that of the nanny. It wasn’t until our group had walked back downstairs that we felt a pressure lifted off of our chests. John said that is pretty common and the feeling worsens at night. The third floor is also where John has had his personal run-ins with the ghosts of the Grant-Humphreys that we discuss in our final presentation. 

Another notable part of the house we explored was the basement, which includes the ballroom, the entrance to the servants’ tunnel, and a long, looming hallway that was once used as a bowling alley and then a shooting range. At the end of the shooting range is where a dark shadowy figure is occasionally seen standing in the corner. The other ghost present in the basement is that of Humphreys’ little sister who tragically fell down the stairs and passed away. It was interesting to learn about the two different facades of the mansion; one as a popular wedding venue and the other, which often gets overlooked by the wedding clients who rent out the space, as a truly haunted house. Overall our group had a great experience at the Grant-Humphreys Mansion even if it left us walking away with a feeling of unheimlich.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #7: The Cabin in the Woods

After watching The Cabin in the Woods in class on Monday, the film felt like the perfect culmination of all that we have been studying over the course of this class and made a lot of sense to watch last. Not only did the film include almost all the horror archetypes we looked at, including zombies, werewolves, and demons, but it also focused on more contemporary fears felt by American culture such as fear of corporate/ government control and fear of technology. By utilizing the historical archetypes the audience is used to to create a jump scare, the film uses the more modern fears to create an undercurrent of tension that begins to feel very uncanny. While the killer zombies are jumping out right in front of us and frightening us, the unnerving feeling of having no free will is sitting in the back of our minds. The real horror of The Cabin in the Woods is not the army of scary monsters, but the corporate leaders who created them and who gamble on the lives of those unfortunate enough to be chosen for the sacrificial game. The film leaves the audience with the uncanny and unnerving feeling that we could all just be puppets on strings who ultimately have no control over our own lives. The zombies, werewolves, and demons that have historically been the archetypes used to exemplify cultural anxieties are used as a distraction, not only for the characters in the film but also the audience, from the real horror and current cultural anxieties that the film portrays.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #6: The Exorcist

The 1973 film The Exorcist became a battleground in the culture wars of the ‘60s and ‘70s that pitted religion and traditional family values against second wave feminism and sexual liberation. With Regan as the vessel through which this battle is exemplified, the film shows American culture’s growing anxiety over the female body and the sexual revolution. Regan’s mother Chris is seen as the stereotypical “new woman” who has broken away from the traditional family unit. She is a single mother with her own career as an actress, who is starring in what appears to be a more liberal film at the beginning of The Exorcist. It is made known that Regan’s father is absent and that Chris’ career is the reason she can afford the lifestyle her and her daughter have. While the film portrays this non- traditional family unit, ultimately they use it as a warning to the audience: If you are a non- religious single mother of a young girl you are at risk of having your daughter possessed by a demon. The film uses Regan’s possession as a way of sexualizing her and feeding into America’s anxiety over the sexualized teen. As stated in the chapter “Haunted Houses”, “The human body itself, especially the female body, came to be seen as a monster or at least a monster-birthing machine” (pg. 170). As a young girl, Regan is the monster and her mother, Chris, is seen as the one to blame. It isn’t until religion steps in and the male priest sacrifices his life that Regan is exorcised of the demons within her and is no longer a monster. Overall, The Exorcist exemplifies America’s anxieties over the female body and second wave feminism, and in the end reinforces the traditional family unit and the expectation of religion in every home. 

[nomadicnoesis]

Essay 2: The Werewolf in the Shadow

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that within all humans resides a shadow self, our subconscious representing all of our repressed instincts and desires. Our shadow self contains everything about us that is unacceptable to society and even unacceptable to our own personal morals. From aggression to envy to hate we trap those feelings deep within our shadow. In folklore throughout the world there are tales of humans with an animal hiding within them. Many times this animal was seen as a wolf. What if the shadow first proposed by Carl Jung and the wolf from ancient folklore are one in the same inside all of us, past and present?

After listening to the Lore podcast titled “The Beast Within” the sixteenth century German tale of Peter Stumpp becomes a prime example of connecting the wolf to the human shadow self. In the tale, a small German village is held hostage by violent “wolf” attacks happening outside the town walls. From livestock to young women and children no one was safe from these seemingly random and monstrous attacks. When a hunting party of men and dogs go out into the forest to track the beast down everyone is shocked to discover not a wolf but a man. The man, Peter Stumpp, was a well known farmer from the village and when he confesses to the grisly attacks it is unbelievable. How could a seemingly normal man commit these beastly acts? For everyone in the village there was only one reasonable explanation and it was the one Peter Stumpp himself offered: that because of a pact he entered into with the Devil when he was twelve he had the ability to turn into a wolf to indulge in his blood thirsty desires. As a result of his crimes Peter Stumpp was sentenced to death in a most gruesome manner; his skin was peeled off with hot pincers before his arms and legs were broken and then finally when the townspeople decided to end the torture his head was chopped off. This small German village had become the site of one of the first trials of a wolf man and helped create the legend of what we now know as the modern werewolf.

The tale of Peter Stumpp exemplifies the cultural fears and anxieties of sixteenth century Europe, but also represents fears of the collective human consciousness as told by Carl Jung’s archetype. The citizens of this German village couldn’t begin to fathom that a normal man could commit these atrocities, but Peter Stumpp did and they needed a way to explain it. Instead of admitting that a man everyone knew and loved could be so beastly the werewolf became an explanation that everyone could more easily stomach. A giant unknown monster hiding in the woods was less scary than the unassuming neighbor living next door. While there is irony in the way the villagers gruesomely executed the accused, ultimately the story of Peter Stumpp and the werewolf represent the human fear of an animalistic side and a shadow self. The werewolf was a scapegoat used to explain the horror instead of admitting to the reality that humans have a darker side within them that when released is absolutely beastly.

But how could humans so readily accept the existence of a monstrous beast with no scientific evidence? As Jay Smith discusses in Monsters of the Gevaudan: The Making of a Beast, “The anxieties that attended this set of transformations… distilled the curiosities, fears, and hopes of a wide cross section of the French population, creating an atmosphere in which many- the elite and the lowly, the learned and the unlearned- could accept and even expect, the presence of a monster” (pg. 5). While Smith is focused on a different beastly wolf in a different European country in a different century the essence of his quote holds true for the tale of Peter Stumpp and all instances of werewolf stories. The cultural climate and environment of a region and a people directly affects their willingness to accept the unknown. The real anxieties of the time, aside from the constant fear of our shadow self, become exemplified in the werewolf. In the case of the Beast of Gevaudan the presence of a monstrous wolf helped the French population work through their repressed fears and anxieties in the age of Enlightenment and in the wake of the Seven Years’ War. As it was easier to fear an unknown beast in the woods of Germany so it was easier to fear a beast in the mountains of France, or else face the reality of political unrest and national vulnerability.

The tale of Peter Stumpp and the legend of the werewolf bring to the surface a collective fear of the human subconscious and what exists within the darkest parts of our shadows. As time goes by and cultural anxieties change so to does the presence of the werewolf, but what remains the same is the constant fear of the Jungian archetype, the Shadow. From sixteenth century Europe to 1940s Hollywood the werewolf exemplifies humans’ fear of the Shadow. Using the 1941 film The Wolf Man as a more modern example of the werewolf it is easy to see the continued fear of inner man. In the film, the main character Larry has been turned into a werewolf, but no one wants to believe that he’s changed. Even when Larry tells his father of the animalistic instincts that have surfaced from within him because of his bite from a werewolf, his father refuses to believe him and thinks it’s all in his head. For the characters around Larry there’s no way this normal guy could have these beastly urges that lead him to attack other people. The werewolf has come to symbolize mankind’s refusal of our own inner darkness.

The existence of the werewolf was born out of ancient folklore and continues to live on through popular culture. But why do we keep the werewolf archetype around when it represents everything we don’t want to be as a society? Perhaps the werewolf has lived on through the centuries to serve as a reminder that hiding within all of us is a darkness more terrifying than any beast lurking in the shadows.

Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “The 4 Major Jungian Archetypes.” Verywell Mind, 2 Apr. 2019,www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439.

Mahnke, Aaron, host. “Episode 3: The Beast Within.” Lore, Lore Podcast, 6 April 2015. https://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/3

Smith, Jay M. “Introduction: The Beast and Its World.” Monsters of the Gevaudan: The Making of a Beast, EBSCOhost, 2011, pp. 1–6.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #5- The Wolf Man

The Wolf Man from 1941 uses the werewolf archetype to exemplify our cultural fears of the Other and our own subconscious. In the film the first werewolf we are introduced to is Bela, a gypsy fortune- teller with an unknown accent who is seen as lower class compared to the main character Larry. As a man of higher class the fear of becoming a werewolf comes along with the fear of losing his status in society. Larry tries to quell this fear by hiding in his family’s estate, but ultimately he cannot resist his werewolf urges and has to become an outsider and the Other. In the film the werewolf is ethnically Other-ed by its connection to the Occult and Paganism. The film made it clear that the werewolf could not come from Western religion or Western society, as proved in the scene in the church with the gypsy woman and the priest who refused to let her chant over the body of Bela. 

The werewolf in The Wolf Man also exemplifies our fear of the Jungian Shadow and our repressed animal instincts. Larry’s father thinks his affliction is all in his mind and tells Larry there is, “good and evil in every man’s soul” and that what was troubling him could surely be explained by a doctor and science. There is an underlying fear of what is unexplainable and what is trapped within the Shadow- our own subconscious. Ultimately the werewolf represents our fears of what is unknown around us and what is unknown within us.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #4- Winter is here & so are the Zombies

With the final season premiere on Sunday, I thought it was fitting to dive deeper into the zombie creatures of Game of Thrones to better understand what contemporary cultural fears the characters, known as white walkers and the army of the undead, represent. White walkers and their army of the undead, wights, don’t conform to the classic zombie trope society has given us in the past. While the wights are reanimated corpses, they are not the typical flesh- crazed zombies. They are mindless servants intent on doing whatever their leader, a white walker called the Night King, commands. The Night King and white walkers of Game of Thrones give a new twist to the zombie trope. While the wights may be mindless, the white walkers are not and within their zombie society they have a hierarchical system and an agenda. White walkers are immortal beings who were once men but are now un-living creatures with unknown power intent on destroying all of humanity and growing their undead army. While all the mortals of Westeros are battling for control of the seven kingdoms, the Night King and his undead army are an ominous presence in the north, moving ever closer and growing ever larger over the course of the series until finally kings and queens who were once enemies are forced to work together to face the danger in the north. The presence of the white walkers in Game of Thrones can be seen as our cultural anxieties towards climate change. The Night King and his army are an uncontrollable force threatening all of humanity, not unlike unpredictable weather events that have unprecedented consequences. Just like a tsunami or hurricane or avalanche, the army of the undead does not discriminate in the destruction it causes and everyone in its path is at risk. For Game of Thrones winter is finally here, and for everyone at home watching the effects of climate change are here, and no one is safe.

[nomadicnoesis]

Lore around the Numbers 3, 7 & 9

For our group presentation on Numerology one of the aspects we focused on was the different lore surrounding it. As Numerology is thousands and thousands of years old there is a lot of ancient folklore surrounding the different Numerological systems. Different cultures have different stories relating to the power of different numbers. In our presentation we focused on three major numbers that pop up in ancient folklore- three, seven, and nine. In Numerology, three is considered holy (the Holy Trinity) and in folklore many things are grouped into threes. The number three holds power- both good and bad- and in tales such as The Three Billy Goats, The Three Little Pigs, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, three is necessary to show the different characteristics and outcomes in order for the story to become a fable and teach a lesson. As for the number seven it is said to be mystical and magical. The power of seven is derived from the seven chakras of the human body. The Irish folklore the seventh son of the seventh son gives magical powers to the son in this long line of male heirs. In religion the number seven holds great power (the seven deadly sins, the world created in seven days), which helps explain why lore gives it a mystical quality. Finally, in the lore surrounding Numerology, the number nine is considered extremely lucky. From sitting on cloud nine to the nine lives of cats, nine is considered lucky because it is the Trinity tripled. After learning briefly about the folklore surrounding the numbers three, seven, and nine where else do you see them pop up in ancient and popular culture? And what other numbers hold meaning in your life? Why?

[nomadicnoesis]

Honors Blog Post #6- 2nd draft of Intro

So the legend goes, as told by Lakota holy man Lame Deer, the Sioux of the Black Hills came to be after a great flood sent by the water monster Unktehi that killed many of the ancient peoples, whose blood and flesh were then turned to red pipestone, creating the sacred pipestone quarry. Only one person lived through the terrible flood, a beautiful girl who survived by grabbing onto the feet of the great spotted eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, who flew her to the highest point in the Black Hills, a steep rock formation that could not be reached by the flood waters. As punishment for Unktehi’s flood, the Grandfather Spirit, Tunkshila, turned her to stone, forcing the bones of the water monster to forever remain in the Black Hills. Her bones make up the Badlands and her back can be seen protruding out of the land as a ridge of yellow and red rocks. As for the beautiful girl, Wanblee Galeshka made her his wife and she bore twins- a boy and a girl- who returned to the ground after the waters subsided. Wanblee Galeshka told them to become a great nation. And so a great nation, descendent of  the wisest of all birds, the eagle, was born: the Lakota Oyate. This creation story gives the Lakota people a relationship to Black Hills by directly tying their ancestors and the tribe’s history to the land. Through oral stories, such as the Lakota creation story, indigenous tribes of this region find their identity intertwined with the land itself. This relationship to the natural landscape is a far cry from the dominant view of land by Western thought and white Americans, made famous by such early male figures as Thomas Jefferson, with his book Notes on the State of Virginia from the late eighteenth century. Over the past several centuries as the Western thought of dominating land and nature for individual personal gain rolled over the landscape of this continent so too did it roll over the Native American identity, looking to bury it deep beneath the soil that can only then be commodified. As Western thought seeped into early U.S. legislation- specifically legislation from the mid nineteenth century- it looked to simultaneously conquer the lands of the Western Plains and erase the Native American identity, which has created cross-generational consequences that continue to negatively affect the indigenous peoples still living in this region today. 

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post #3- Queen of the Damned

Queen of the Damned is a film extremely conscious of America’s cultural anxieties at the time of its release in 2002. The film uses gothic and the vampire as the vessel to reveal culture’s dark anxieties toward the LGBT community, specifically gay men and the AIDS crisis, and powerful women. As the article “Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture” states, the film, originally based on Rice’s novels, “poses the gay man as the solution to this problem and indicts him as its cause” (Haggerty, pg. 10). With Marius representing the traditional vampire- a handsome, white man- who instead of choosing a woman chooses another man, Lestat, to be internally stuck together, he also represents the old way of thinking. Throughout the film he tells Lestat they must stay in the shadows and be unknown to the world, or in other words stay in the closet. Lestat ignores that and instead let’s the world know he is a vampire and tells all the other vampires to “come out”. Lestat opening himself up to the world and revealing his true nature is his attempt to “haunt back”. After centuries of repression he makes his presence known- this is a direct, historical comment by the film on the generations of mistreatment and oppression of the LGBT community in American culture. Ultimately the film is problematic in that it reverts back to stereotypical tropes and the traditional “family values” with Lestat and Jesse ending up together. If Marius, and to some degree Lestat, represent the traditional vampire Queen Akasha is an attempt at revising the vampire character. She is a woman of color and reveals an American cultural fear: a powerful, monstrous woman. Queen Akasha is the opposite of every single victim of the traditional vampire. Again though, the film is problematic as the character is expected to have a king by her side, who is a white man, Lestat, who ultimately defeats her. Queen of the Damned does well to blur the lines of the unheimlich and heimlich, bringing cultural anxieties to the light, but doesn’t quite overcome them as it ends with the traditional old stereotypes that American culture is used to.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post 5: *Very* rough 1st draft: Intro

As of November of 2018 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in western South Dakota there are residents living on properties without street addresses and for the past decade a single man, Troy Ferguson, has been moving from community to community in Pine Ridge, mapping and issuing home addresses while also installing street signs so as to improve emergency dispatch response times, mail delivery, and navigation systems. Having an organized system to map out a town and effectively provide delivery services and 911 help seems like an expectation for all communities in the United States (towns and cities have been mapped and organized with street signs and home addresses since the Thirteen Colonies) but for the Pine Ridge Reservation, first created in 1868 by the Treaty of Fort Laramie, this is a twenty-first century update. Knowing where one lives gives a sense of ownership to their land, and in the United States ownership over land can be tied to a person’s identity. So why then have Native Americans living in the United States gone without the luxury of being able to effectively communicate where they live- to friends, family, emergency dispatchers, and the delivery man- for so long?

Indigenous tribes have a unique and direct connection to land and nature that isn’t present in western thought in the United States. While residents from Pine Ridge may not be able to give a person the address of their homes the Sioux creation story is a constant reminder of where they are from. Their creation story directly ties the Sioux people to the land of the Black Hills, stating that the red rocks of the region are created from the flesh and blood of their ancestors. The tribes of the Western Plains have always had a connection to the land that runs deeper than ownership and property rights, but still the United States government has attempted to break the bond between Indian and land, hoping to ultimately break the Indian. Through early legislation such as the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 the United States government has attempted to erase the Native American identity through the removal of Native American lands on the Western Plains with cross-generational consequences that continue up to present day.

[nomadicnoesis]

Essay 1: Option 1- What Really Haunts Shockoe Bottom?

In Ghostland by Colin Dickey, the chapter “A Devilish Place” looks at the dark history of the seemingly unassuming community of Shockoe Bottom in Richmond, Virginia. As one of the oldest European settlements in the country the land where Shockoe Bottom in Richmond now sits has a storied history dating back to the early seventeenth century with prominent figures such as Pocahontas and John Smith living in the area around Powhatan’s River (now known as the James River). From the Powhatans’ battles with European settlers to the Revolutionary War to the slave trade and Civil War, the land where the neighborhood of Shockoe Bottom lies is bound to be haunted by its bloody past. But who and what truly haunts the old buildings and the collective conscious of Shockoe Bottom? Looking deeper into the haunted history of Shockoe Bottom reveals an overwhelming report of ghost stories, but ultimately they are ghost stories that repress and bury the the true gruesome nature of the community’s racist past.

As Dickey asks at the beginning of the chapter, “Why, then, in a place that should be so haunted by the legacy of such a terrible injustice, the scene of countless deaths, should there be nothing but white ghosts?” (pg. 104). An online search for haunted spaces in Shockoe Bottom in Richmond brings up a “Twelve Most Haunted Buildings” list that ranges from theatres built in the 1920s to the oldest building in the area to even a plantation from the mid 1700s, but not a single mention of the Devil’s Half Acre or Lumpkin’s Jail. As Dickey discusses in Ghostland these two spaces were home to massive amounts of tragedy and should be home to thousands of lost souls, yet the spaces and ghosts mentioned in the article bear no mention of Shockoe Bottom’s days as the second largest slave trade market in America. The ghosts in the article range from little blonde children to Edgar Allan Poe, but even in the section about the plantation there is no impression given that any space in Shockoe Bottom is haunted by the ghosts of African slaves.

And why should it? As Dickey states, “the forced migration of enslaved people, facilitated by the massive slave markets in places like Shockoe Bottom and New Orleans, stripped people of their humanity so as to maximize their profit potential” (pg. 111). Memory is a part of humanity and slavery was built on forgetting who these people were. Slaves were never meant to be remembered so it’s no surprise that they are erased from present day Shockoe Bottom’s ghost stories and their collective consciousness. The lack of African slaves in the space’s haunted tales are an attempt to forget the community’s gruesome past, which also serves as a continuation of the racist system that only succeeded when it was able to entirely remove the enslaved person’s humanity.

“A Devilish Place” proves that the living decide who from the dead come back to haunt us. The ghost stories made popular in Shockoe Bottom are a problematic narrative that look to erase an ugly truth from the community’s past. By removing the ghosts of African slaves from ghost stories, a form of oral history, the memory of their existence is removed from the collective consciousness, which is an attempt to remove them from the space’s history all together. By  whitewashing Shockoe Bottom’s haunted tales, so too is the history of the neighborhood whitewashed, refusing to face the real ghosts hiding in its shadows.

Refusing to acknowledge what is really haunting Shockoe Bottom gives the area an uncanny feeling, a knowing that the blonde haired ghosts haunting the theatres and pubs are not the real threat. The real threat and real fear comes from the unknown, the buried bones and stories of African slaves, now paved over by a new highway. Like the slave owners and traders who feared a revolt, modern day Shockoe Bottom fears an uprising of its ugly past. The ghost stories from the supposedly haunted buildings found in articles like the “Twelve Most Haunted Buildings” list are just a distraction from the true fear in the back of everyone’s mind. Shockoe Bottom’s horrific history and its role in the North American slave trade will always strike a bigger fear in the heart of its citizens than any white ghost ever could. The repression of African slaves in Shockoe Bottom’s ghost stories is an attempt by the community to repress what truly haunts them: their own brutal and racist past.

Works Cited

Dickey, Colin. Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places. New York: 

Penguin, 2016

Pascal, Danasia. “Richmond's Most Haunted Buildings.” 12 About Town, 18 Oct. 2018,

www.12abouttown.com/richmonds-most-haunted-buildings/.

[nomadicnoesis]

Honors Blog Post #4- Research Process Update

As I dive deeper and deeper into research for my topic I’m beginning to struggle in clearly stating and defining what my thesis is. I have a general idea of what I want to write about- the history of Native American tribes on the western plains and the cross generational consequences of U.S colonialism and imperialism- but I can’t seem to nail down my thesis because of all the research I am finding. Beginning to annotate the sources I have already gathered into my Google Drive has been very helpful in organizing the information I have, but during this past week it feels as if I’m adding sources faster than I can annotate them.

Booth’s textbook has us ask ourselves why this research matters and I know what I’m studying is important, but I feel as if I don’t yet have a new perspective or angle on what I’m researching and am worried I won’t be contributing something relevant to the information already out there. I am hoping to find a meaningful way to connect all this research I have already collected, but so far it has been a little bit of a challenge.

I am also worried about looking at all the different tribes on the western plains and grouping them all together into having the same collective thoughts and reactions to different historical events, because I know these historical moments affected different tribes very differently. I want to be able to discuss the history of Native Americans on the western plains but don’t want to cast one big umbrella over many different groups of peoples.

To counteract this worry I have for my writing I was starting to think I would only focus on a couple key moments in history from this region and era, but then I run into the the trouble of what to choose because I think it is all so interesting and plays a part for how Native American life on a reservation is today. I am also thinking about whether I want to frame my essay from past to present or start at the present with current Native American issues and trace their roots back in history. I have a couple current articles about land and property rights on reservations that I find pretty interesting and I have now been thinking a lot about land and identity, but still just don’t know what path to go down with my essay.

Overall, my current research has created a lot of questions for me and I haven’t been able to decide what I want to try to answer with my essay. This past week of research has sort of felt like a roadblock because I realized my initial thesis was too broad and doesn’t give me the opportunity to add new information or a new perspective to the academic discussion already out there about the history of Native Americans on the western plains. I want to be able to add something meaningful to this topic but at the moment I am feeling a little lost.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog #2: Amityville Horror

After watching The Amityville Horror a line from the beginning of the film is what has stuck out to me most. While Kathy and George are first touring the home George states, “Houses don’t have memories”. This comment was challenged throughout the entire movie as the house worked to make its presence known to its new residents. The house having a memory and a presence is what subverts the American Dream and fractures the nuclear family for George and Kathy. A main component of the American Dream is owning the beautiful house with the white picket fence and while the Lutz at first believe they have obtained that, the house proves that it cannot be owned by them, no matter how many times George shouts, “This is my house!” throughout the film. The haunted house fractures the American Dream for Kathy and George. But it isn’t just any ghosts haunting their home and ruining their American Dream, it’s the ghosts of the ancient Indians buried there because the dominant culture always looks for an “Other” to blame. By blaming the “Other”, the white couple doesn’t have to blame themselves for their superficial insistence to claim ownership over this house and land when it does not want to be owned in the first place. Besides subverting the American Dream for the Lutz, the haunted space in The Amityville Horror also challenges the socialized gender roles of the nuclear family. George is often seen chopping wood in the movie, an effort on his part to appear strong for his family when in reality he was actually quite scared of their home. The haunted house makes it difficult for George to fill the stereotypical role of the strong, masculine husband because of the fear the house causes. 

[nomadicnoesis]

Honors Research Blog Post #3

Over our long weekend I went a little crazy in looking for sources to help with my paper about Western Plains Native American history and its connection to modern day issues faced on reservations, and am still combing through this research to find the most helpful information. I am still very much set on my topic, but know that with all this research information I could frame my paper in several different ways.

Looking over my sources I found some very helpful scholarly articles on our library’s online database. Through the online database I was able to find a transcript of the text from the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie along with some background information on the signing of the treaty. This will be very useful for my paper because the Treaty of Fort Laramie is what established most of the reservations on the Western Plains. The creation of the treaty along with the eventual breaking of many of its articles are key moments in Native American History and I think it makes sense to use the treaty as a historical starting point for my essay. Another scholarly article I found discusses U.S. and Indian relations, and tribal sovereignty in the twenty first century. It uses the building of the DAPL on Standing Rock reservation as the main example of the broken treaty system utilized by the U.S. government. It references the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie when discussing the modern day issues of tribal sovereignty and tribal consultation when it comes to tribal land and water rights. The last scholarly article I found is all about Critical Indigenous Theory with a legal framework. The article discusses Canadian Law but I think it’s still helpful as it talks about the dominant legal system as a colonial legal system that erases Indigenous Law, which can be applied to U.S. Law and its relation to our Native American tribes.

Two other sources I found are newspaper articles from the Rapid City Journal, which is the major newspaper for the area around Pine Ridge reservation and both discuss very current events happening on the reservation. The article I am most interested in about street signs and addresses just being incorporated onto the reservation. Before now most residents living on Pine Ridge didn’t have an address for their homes making it difficult for mail delivery and emergency situations. I want to talk about land and identity in my essay and this article could help.

My other sources include some books that I have that will help with the historical piece of my essay. One of them is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown, which is a very comprehensive history of exactly what I’m interested in and should help me quite a bit when looking at historical events for my essay. The other two books are by Zitkala- Sa, a Native American writer and activist who grew up on the Rosebud reservation and lived during the late nineteenth century.

I am very interested in studying the history of Native American tribes on the western plains and the cross generational consequences of U.S imperialism on modern day reservations. At the moment I plan on using ecocriticism and Indigenous Critical Theory to frame my essay as I want to talk about Native land and its people. I think this research is important because indigenous peoples are a very underrepresented population who historically have not had a say in what happens to them by the U.S. government and think it is necessary to shine a light on the people and the land that have struggled and continue to struggle under the foot of United States’ colonization and imperialism.

[nomadicnoesis]

Blog Post 1: “Why We Crave Horror”

After reading Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror” I better understand the importance of horror movies to the human psyche. We need horror. No one person is totally sane, as King mentions, not even saints and we need an outlet to quell the insanity within us. And horror movies have become the perfect escape for our insane emotions. Paying to watch a fictitious murderer or monster in the theaters still gives us a very real thrill and scare, which is what we may need to keep us from becoming murderers and monsters in real life. Horror films are a space where our dark side can run free without any real consequences. Although I haven’t been the biggest fan of horror movies in the past, this reading and the whole class in general are beginning to show me just how much the genre matters. I consider myself a novice when it comes to horror, but I think films such as the Purge series are a good example of films made specifically as a space to house our dark side. The have a realistic setting and characters that are everyday people just like the movie-goers in the audience, which gives audience members a chance to indulge in their insane emotions, even if it’s just for a couple hours.