The supernatural can be both frightening and attractive. Ghosts, vampires, poltergeists and séances may seem irrational, but they can reveal surprisingly complex systems of thought in our own as well as earlier societies. By examining supernatural beliefs, this module will set them within their own time frame and show how attitudes to the spectral world have changed.

Knowledge and Understanding:

• Demonstrate a broad knowledge of the concept of ‘the supernatural’ in the context of folklore and literature.
• Demonstrate a broad knowledge of the themes and motifs of the supernatural in selected areas or folklore, literary works and films.
• Demonstrate an understanding of how a range of source materials can be used in the study of themes and concepts covered in this course.
• Demonstrate an understanding of modern scholarly approaches to the study of themes and concepts covered in this course.

Intellectual Skills:

• Demonstrate a basic knowledge of the underlying concepts and principles associated with the study of history and folklore.
• Initiate, undertake and articulate a basic analysis of historical information.
• Develop explanations and support them with evidence.
• Communicate, in both verbal and written form, the knowledge and understanding acquired on the course.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

•  Identify strengths, weaknesses, problems, and or peculiarities of alternative historical interpretations.
•  Initiate, undertake and articulate a basic analysis of historical information.
• Deepen understanding of the broad themes and developments considered in the course through the analysis of a historical source or sources.
• To research, plan and structure essays and/or projects.
• To recognise, evaluate and interpret different types of evidence.
• To develop, at a basic level, subject-specific and critically-discerning information literacy skills.

This module is taught in 10, two-hour sessions, delivered on a weekly basis. These sessions will consist of a 1-hour lecture followed by class discussion and group work on specific topics relating to the module. The discussion and group work will enable the students to think critically and contribute to the debates and topics presented during the lectures. The discussion-led sessions and the lectures will be supplemented by resources available to the students via Learning Central. One session will be a visit to the Scolar rare books collection of Cardiff University which will enable students to see and discuss special collections material relevant to subjects covered in other lectures.

Academic Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have:

• found relevant resources in the library and online;
•  assessed the reliability of different sources of information;
• demonstrated a critical approach to academic texts.

Transferable/employability Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have shown that he/she can:

• work effectively as part of a group;
• present an argument, accurately, succinctly and lucidly, and in written or oral form.
• time manage and organise study methods and workload;
• gather, organise and deploy evidence, data and information; and familiarity with appropriate means of identifying, finding, retrieving, sorting and exchanging information.

1. Shakespeare’s ghosts- this session will introduce different types of supernatural beings through the familiar plays of Shakespeare. The plays provide an opportunity to examine attitudes to ghosts in the sixteenth century and through art based on Shakespeare plays and modern productions an opportunity to examine how attitudes to the supernatural have changed over time.

2. Medieval Revenants; Nowhere is the tradition of ghosts more varied than in the literature and traditions of medieval Europe.  Through sources such as chronicles, romances and works of religious piety, we can survey the nature and range of supernatural belief during this period and examine texts from different areas.

3. Angels. This group of supernatural beings appears in a number of religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They have parallels in other culture and continue to function in contemporary popular culture and spirituality.

4. Ghost from the Underworld. This session will consider a range of encounters with underworld spectres including the Mayan Xibalba, Dante’s Inferno, Gilgamesh, and The motif of the Double Invitation from Don Giovanni.

5. Conjuring spirits: looks at the role of magician, prophets and other supernatural practitioners in mediating contact with the supernatural world. 

6. Spirit foxes and other ghosts: The spectral world of Japan is very rich and this session will include the work of western writers such as Lafcadio Hearn who have provided a channel for this material. 

7. The English ghosts of M.R. James will consider the work of this influential writer and scholar.

8. The Enlightened Vampire this session will look at the emergence of the ‘vampire’ in the 17^th-century and 18^th century and its relation to the elegant vampires of contemporary couture. 

9. Transcendent Powers, prophecy, second sight, and séances. This session will examine the supernatural from the ‘pschyical’ research and consider some of the ‘alternate’ history fiction such as susanna Clarke’s 

10. An opportunity to examine an discuss some of the material in Cardiff University’s special collections

Selections from literary works, TV and film will be provided during the course on Learning Central and in Senghennydd Library.

Selected primary sources

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, (London, Bloomsbury 2004

M.R. James, The Ghost Stories of An Antiquary (any edition)

Arthur Conan Doyle,The Coming of the Fairies. London, 1922

Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth: A short Treatise of Charms and Spells ed.tewart Sanderson. (Cambridge: Mistletoe books, 1976).

W.Y. Evans Wentz, The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries London, New York: 1911.

Key secondary sources

Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. Yale University Press, 1988.

Marina Warner, Phantasmagoria: spirit visions, metaphors, and media into the twenty-first century. Oxford University Press 2006

Recommended secondary texts

The resources listed below provide background and context for the topics that will be considered in the course.

Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation. Cornell University Press, 1996.

Katharine M. Briggs, The Anatomy of Puck: an examination of fairy beliefs among
Shakespeare's contemporaries and successors.  London: 1959.
Nancy Caciola, “Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in the Medieval Culture.” Past and Present 152 (1996): 3-45.

H.R Ellis Davidson, “The Restless Dead: an Icelandic Ghost Story.” In The Folklore of Ghosts, ed. H.R. Ellis Davidson. 155-176. UK: St. Edmundsbury Press, 1981.

Sukehiro Hirakawa, Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn: Japanese legends life & culture. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 1997

Jeremy Maas, Pamela White Trimpe, Charlotte Gere et al., Victorian Fairy Painting. London: 1997

Alex Owen, The darkened room: women, power, and spiritualism in late Victorian England. University of Chicago Press, 2004

Diane Purkiss, Troublesome things: a history of fairies and fairy stories. London: Penguin, 2001.

Stewart F Sanderson, “The Cottingley Fairy Photographs; a re-appraisal of the evidence”. Folklore  84 (1973) 89-103.

Carole G Silver, Strange and Secret Peoples: fairies and Victorian consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1999.