Animal Ghosts Through History: How traditional ghost beliefs navigated non-human deaths
Ghosts are a prominent belief shared by many cultures throughout history, often shaped by religious ideas of death and the afterlife. However, these beliefs tend to be overwhelmingly focused on the ghosts of humans and those that manifest in a human form. But death is not a uniquely human experience and for thousands of years people have grappled with the fate of the animals that share our mortality.
While animal ghosts have received notably less attention than their human counterparts throughout history, their presence can be traced back to classical antiquity and continues to feature in ghost stories today.
This lecture discusses key ghost stories through history and explore the continuing (and often contentious) belief in animal ghosts, delving into the complex relationships that exist between humans, animals, and death.
Bio
Ms Rebecca Willis is a current PhD student and casual academic at The University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research spans across antiquity and into early modern Europe examining how the lens of magic and related belief systems can be used to provide new and comparative insights into the perceptions and interactions between individuals, their own embodied existence, and the natural environment in which they lived.
Curated & Hosted by
Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
