inspired community supercurricular lecture: hauntology

It was truly fantastic yesterday evening as our very own Mr Connell delivered the second in our series of supercurricular community lectures: Hauntology: An Overview of Ghosts in English Literature and Critical Theory.

The lecture programme is designed to deliver a university level of teaching and expertise in a variety of fields, not only to our own sixth formers, but to those across the wider area, and to all interested in the subject.

It was great to see so many from our own and other school communities in attendance, and to welcome staff and students from Wellington School in Timperley, and Mr Connell presented and shared an awe-inspiring breath of knowledge on critical theory and its application to genres from the renaissance era to the present day.

Opening with an exploration of Dickens's ghost stories, and their interrelation with mid-Victorian society and cultural and political issues, and drawing parallels with the contemporary climate, Mr Connell's lecture searchingly probed the construct of the ghost, and the critical conceptualisation of haunting and its etymology.

The lecture was broad-ranging in scope, spanning centuries of literature, art. music, and philosophy, embracing the work of philosophers and critical theorists as diverse as Freud, Derrida, Fisher and Barthes; the literary works of Shakespeare, Dickens and WW Jacobs (to name just some); and film director Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of King's novel The Shining, and its encapsulation of the distortion yet familiarity of hauntology within society and civilisation, and the contribution of the musical score to its efficacy and staging.

It was fascinating to hear Shakespearean texts such as Hamlet, and nineteenth century works such as Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol deconstructed and analysed. And to experience an exploration of the multi-faceted readings of them, as we heard their binary comparisons and linguistic appositions aligned, not only with contemporary texts, but with current socio-political and cultural constructs and issues.

As testified by the questions that members of the audience were keen to ask at the end, Mr Connell left us all with a great deal to contemplate, to probe, and to think upon further, about what we know, about what we thought that we knew, and about what we might want to know, about spectral constructs across genres, and the related critical, philosophical and linguistic theories; and about the works of Dickens in particular, that the lecture really opened up to a new perspective, a remarkable achievement as historically there has been so much critical analysis of his writing.

A really enriching evening for all, with huge huge thanks to Mr Connell, to Miss Hammond for organising, to the staff who supported the event, and to all those who attended.

And we look forward to seeing you at the next of our lectures in the New Year!