Tracing the Spectral Bodies and Ghostly Landscapes in Iraqi Fiction
Abstract
This research examines the ghostly materiality and phantasmal legacy that haunt the collective psyche of the Iraqi people, as documented through the devastation and subliminal changes in the war-torn landscape, as reflected in the chosen works of fiction. The study investigated the transformation of these places ravaged by war into ghostly records that disrupt the temporal and spatial bounds. This paper presents an investigation into the two texts, Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi and The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim, through the lens of Jo Frances Maddern and Peter Adey’s technique of mapping ‘Spectro-geographies,’ employing a content-based textual analysis of the chosen texts. The research particularly looked at the suffering of Iraqis within these texts and how they made sense of the constant inconsistency that emerged from the ruination and turmoil that had visited the Iraqi land, the gothic nature of the war, and its several aftermaths. Through the notion of spectro-geography, the research stressed the landscape’s struggle to come to terms with its forever changed and constantly altering phantasmic character and primal reality.
Keywords: Spectro-geographies; ghostly records; gothicism; Iraqi fiction; war-torn landscape
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity (J. Howe, Trans.). Verso.
Bahoora, H. (2021). Corporeality and memory in Iraqi Gothic fiction (Doctoral dissertation). Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto.
Balibar, É. (1998). Violence, ideality, cruelty. New Formations, 35, 7–18.
Bataille, G. (1956). The naked beast at heaven's gate. Olympia Press.
Blanco, M., & Peeren, E. (Eds.). (2010). Popular ghosts: The haunted spaces of everyday culture. A&C Black.
Blasim, H. (2014). The corpse exhibition: And other stories of Iraq. Penguin.
Botting, F. (2019). Infinite monstrosity: Justice, terror, and trauma in Frankenstein in Baghdad. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 30(1).
Cavarero, A. (2009). Horrorism: Naming contemporary violence (Vol. 14). Columbia University Press.
Cody, C. (2018). Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi. Literary Review. Retrieved from https://literaryreview.co.uk/death-becomes-it
Derrida, J. (1999). Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Stanford University Press.
Derrida, J. (2012). Specters of Marx: The state of the debt, the work of mourning, and the new international. Routledge.
Derrida, J. (2016). Force of law: The “mystical foundation of authority.” In D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld, & D. G. Carlson (Eds.), Deconstruction and the possibility of justice (pp. 3–67). Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27.
Freud, S., & Crick, J. (Trans.). (1999). The interpretation of dreams. Oxford University Press.
Gaylard, G. (2008). The postcolonial gothic: Time and death in Southern African literature. Journal of Literary Studies, 24(4), 1–18.
Ghost. (2013). In Oxford Dictionaries Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved April 17, 2013, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/ghost
Grumberg, K. (Ed.). (2022). Middle Eastern gothics: Literature, spectral modernities and the restless past. University of Wales Press.
Hamed, E. (2020). Gothic is the new Iraq (Doctoral dissertation). University of Illinois at Chicago.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press.
Holloway, J., & Kneale, J. (2008). Locating haunting: A ghost-hunter’s guide. Cultural Geographies, 15(3), 297–312.
Hufford, D. J. (2001). Understanding folk medicine. In L. M. Harter, P. M. Japp, & C. S. Beck (Eds.), Healing logics: Culture and medicine in modern health belief systems (pp. 13–35). University of Utah Press.
Khammas, H. J. (2021). The body in contemporary Iraqi fiction: Gender, violence, and Gothic (Doctoral dissertation). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Levinas, E. (1978). Existence and existents (A. Lingis, Trans.). Martinus Nijhoff.
Lorimer, H. (2005). Cultural geography: The busyness of being ‘more-than-representational’. Progress in Human Geography, 29(1), 83–94.
Maddern, J. F., & Adey, P. (2008). Spectro-geographies. Cultural Geographies, 15(3), 291–295.
Merle. (2010). Spectral geographies and crafting a form of experimental historiography. Experimental Geography in Practice. Retrieved from https://merlepatchett.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/spectral-geographies-and-experimental-historiography/
Peeren, E. (2014). Introduction: The spectral metaphor. In E. Peeren (Ed.), The spectral metaphor: Living ghosts and the agency of invisibility (pp. 1–32). Palgrave Macmillan.
Peters, K. (2011). Spectro-geographies. Cultural Geographies, 18(4), 435–457.
Roberts, E. (2013). Geography and the visual image: A hauntological approach. Progress in Human Geography, 37(3), 386–402.
Rose, J. (2004). Deadly embrace. London Review of Books, 26(21), 21–24.
Saadawi, A., & Wright, J. (2014). Frankenstein in Baghdad. The Massachusetts Review, 55(4), 632–637.
Shakespeare, W. (1991). Hamlet [1604]. Oxford Text Archive Core Collection.
Weinstock, J. A. (2013). Introduction: The spectral turn. In J. A. Weinstock (Ed.), The spectralities reader: Ghosts and haunting in contemporary cultural theory (pp. 61–68). Bloomsbury Academic.
Wells, H. G. (2005). The war in the air. Penguin UK.
Young, R. J. C. (2011). Terror effects. In E. Boehmer & S. Morton (Eds.), Terror and the postcolonial (pp. 307–328). Wiley-Blackwell.
Yusof, A. M., Satkunananthan, A. H., Hashim, R. S., & Mohd Rosli, N. L. (2020). The figure of the Nenek Kebayan and the witch in selected haunted house films. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 26(4), 87–98.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2025-3103-13
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
eISSN : 2550-2247
ISSN : 0128-5157