Ghosts Were People Too

How do we perform spectrality? How does marketing impact our experiences of haunted destinations? Go on an archival webquest with us and reconstruct Magelssen's clay pot with us in part 2 of the Whaley House Halloween Special!

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

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Bibliography (for parts 1 & 2):

Carlson, Marvin. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Chapman University. Survey of American Fears. 2018.

Coleman, Ed, and Jenn Coleman. “The Whaley House.” Coleman Concierge, n.d. [Insert article URL.]

Garrick, David. “Old Town San Diego’s Historic Whaley House May Shift to For-Profit Operator.” The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Jan. 2021, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2021/01/06/old-town-san-diegos-historic-whaley-house-may-shift-to-for-profit-operator/ .

Glass, Dean. “The Ghosts at the Whaley House Get All the Publicity.” Reflections, Save Our Heritage Organisation, [publication date to verify].

Hanks, Michele M. Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past. Routledge, 2016.

Houran, James, Sharon A. Hill, Everett D. Haynes, and Ursula A. Bielski. “Paranormal Tourism: Market Study of a Novel and Interactive Approach to Space Activation and Monetization.” Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, 2020, pp. 287–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965520909094 .

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. Viking Press, 1959.

Magelssen, Scott. “Living History Museums and the Construction of the Real through Performance.” Theatre Survey, vol. 45, no. 1, 2004, pp. 61–74.

Magelssen, Scott. Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning. [Publication details to verify.]

McDevitt-Irwin, Jesse, and James R. Irwin. “Infant Mortality among US Whites in the 19th Century: New Evidence from Childhood Sex Ratios.” Demographic Research, vol. 52, 2025, pp. 303–350. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2025.52.10 .

Nunn, Robert. “Flickering Lights and Declaiming Bodies: Semiosis in Film and Theatre.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada, vol. 17, no. 2, 1996.

Palyvou, Clairy. [Title of work on Minoan frescoes and pictorial space at Akrotiri to verify.]

Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. Routledge, 1993.

Piper, Liza. “When Scarlet Fever Came to This Country.” When Disease Came to This Country: Epidemics and Colonialism in Northern North America, Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp. 24–57.

Rowen, Bess. The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. University of Michigan Press, 2021.

Save Our Heritage Organisation. Whaley House Historic Site Lesson Plan. [Publication details to verify.]

Schneider, Rebecca. “Performance Remains.” Performance Research, vol. 6, no. 2, 2001, pp. 100–108.

Slayyyter. “WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA.” 2026. [Album or single details to verify.]

Stone, Philip R. “A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourist Sites, Attractions and Exhibitions.” Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 54, no. 2, 2006, pp. 145–160.

Whaley House. Whaley House Official Website. Historic Tours of America, https://www.whaleyhousesandiego.com/ . Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.

Whaley House. Whaley House Website Archives. Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/ . Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.

Wood, Byrd. “Haunted Houses: Preservation Help or Horror?” National Trust for Historic Preservation, [publication date and URL to verify].

The Journal of San Diego History. San Diego Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2, Apr. 1960.

In this two-part Halloween special, we talk about America’s Most Haunted House®, The Whaley House in San Diego, CA. Join us on this walking tour of haunted tourism, the "enchantment economy", and the history of the house's ghostly legends.

Content Warning - Violet Whaley’s Suicide discussed from 1:16:54-1:28:40

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Bibliography (for both part 1 & part 2):

• Carlson, Marvin. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. University of Michigan Press, 2001.
• Chapman University. Survey of American Fears. 2018.
• Coleman, Ed, and Jenn Coleman. “The Whaley House.” Coleman Concierge, n.d. [Insert article URL.]
• Garrick, David. “Old Town San Diego’s Historic Whaley House May Shift to For-Profit Operator.” The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Jan. 2021, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2021/01/06/old-town-san-diegos-historic-whaley-house-may-shift-to-for-profit-operator/ .
• Glass, Dean. “The Ghosts at the Whaley House Get All the Publicity.” Reflections, Save Our Heritage Organisation.
• Hanks, Michele M. Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past. Routledge, 2016.
• Houran, James, Sharon A. Hill, Everett D. Haynes, and Ursula A. Bielski. “Paranormal Tourism: Market Study of a Novel and Interactive Approach to Space Activation and Monetization.” Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, 2020, pp. 287–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965520909094 .
• Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. Viking Press, 1959.
• Magelssen, Scott. “Living History Museums and the Construction of the Real through Performance.” Theatre Survey, vol. 45, no. 1, 2004, pp. 61–74.
• Magelssen, Scott. Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning.
• McDevitt-Irwin, Jesse, and James R. Irwin. “Infant Mortality among US Whites in the 19th Century: New Evidence from Childhood Sex Ratios.” Demographic Research, vol. 52, 2025, pp. 303–350. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2025.52.10 .
• Nunn, Robert. “Flickering Lights and Declaiming Bodies: Semiosis in Film and Theatre.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada, vol. 17, no. 2, 1996.
• Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. Routledge, 1993.
• Piper, Liza. “When Scarlet Fever Came to This Country.” When Disease Came to This Country: Epidemics and Colonialism in Northern North America, Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp. 24–57.
• Rowen, Bess. The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. University of Michigan Press, 2021.
• Schneider, Rebecca. “Performance Remains.” Performance Research, vol. 6, no. 2, 2001, pp. 100–108.
• Slayyyter. “WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA.” 2026. [Album or single details to verify.]
• Stone, Philip R. “A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourist Sites, Attractions and Exhibitions.” Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 54, no. 2, 2006, pp. 145–160.
• Whaley House. Whaley House Official Website. Historic Tours of America, https://www.whaleyhousesandiego.com/ . Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.
• Whaley House. Whaley House Website Archives. Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/ . Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.
• Wood, Byrd. “Haunted Houses: Preservation Help or Horror?” National Trust for Historic Preservation.
• The Journal of San Diego History. San Diego Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2, Apr. 1960.

Banquo! Lady Macbeth! Shakesqueer! The Monster's Body Is a Cultural Body! Charles Manson! Playboy! Join us for Macbeth, Part 2, in which we explore changing beliefs about ghosts from the ancient world to Shakespeare's England and discuss how audiences, past and present, might understand Banquo's ghost. From there, we turn to Lady Macbeth's fractured experience of guilt and time before considering the many ways filmmakers have reimagined the play to reflect the anxieties of their own historical moments.

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Read Quest's article! “Revenge of the Monster Queer: The Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Liberation of Drag" in The Monstrous Utopian, ed. Michael Chemers and Analola Santana, Routledge

Bibliography:

• Didion, Joan. The White Album. Simon & Schuster, 1979.
• Freebury-Jones, Darren, and Rachel Aanstad. “Did Shakespeare's Audiences Believe in Ghosts?” Shakespeare and Friends. YouTube, 18 Jan. 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br4N4RA0j_s. Accessed 28 July 2026.
• Love, Heather. “Macbeth: Milk.” Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon, Duke University Press, 2011, pp. 201–208. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1134f1s.26. Accessed 28 July 2026.
• Puhvel, Martin. “The Perplexing Ghost of Banquo: Ambiguity and Its Roots.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, vol. 94, no. 3, 1993, pp. 287–302.
• Williams, Deanne. “Mick Jagger Macbeth.” Macbeth and Its Afterlife, edited by Peter Holland, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 145–160.

Films:

• Macbeth. Directed by Orson Welles, Republic Pictures, 1948.
• Macbeth. Directed by Roman Polanski, Columbia Pictures, 1971.
• Macbeth. Directed by Justin Kurzel, StudioCanal, 2015.
• The Tragedy of Macbeth. Directed by Joel Coen, A24 and Apple Original Films, 2021.

Is this a dagger, an inanimate ghost, or something more Freudian? In this, the first of a two-part episode, Annabelle and Quest venture onto the blasted heath to explore the apparitions and queer hauntings of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We talk about Quest’s work on a recent production of the play at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and break down concepts regarding gender, kingship, violence, and the disruption of natural order.

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Read Quest's article! “Revenge of the Monster Queer: The Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Liberation of Drag" in The Monstrous Utopian, ed. Michael Chemers and Analola Santana, Routledge

Bibliography

• Bersani, Leo. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” In Is the Rectum a Grave?: And Other Essays. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
• Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” In Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Updated edition with a new preface by the author. Princeton University Press, 2015.
• Jones, Gwilym. “Macbeth: supernatural storms, equivocal earthquakes” In Shakespeare’s Storms. Manchester University Press, 2015.
• Love, Heather. “Macbeth: Milk.” In Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon. Duke University Press, 2011.
• Menon, Madhavi. “Queer Shakes.” In Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon. Duke University Press, 2011.
• Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Columbia University Press, 1985.
• Varnado, Christine. “Getting Used, and Liking It: Erotic Instrumentality and the Go-Between.” In The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in Early Modern Literature. University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

In this Halloween special, Quest and Annabelle talk about the poetics, play, and "dangers" of the Ouija board.

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Bibliography:“‘The Medium is the Message in the Spacious Present’: Channeling, Television, and the New Age” by Hugh Urban, in Handbook of Spiritualism and Channeling, ed. Cathy Gutierrez

“​​Parlor Games: Play and Social Life in the Haunted House” in Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture by Simone Natale

“Wars and Ouija: Spiritualism in the Twentieth Century” in Calling the Spirits by Lisa Morton

“An Aesthetic History of the Ouija Board’ by Jesse Ryan Erickson, in Printing History

“James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, and the Poetics of Ouija” by Helen Sword in American Literature, vol. 66, no. 3, 1994 https://doi.org/10.2307/2927604

In this, the first of our series on Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, Annabelle and Quest climb into the attic to uncover its ghostly brides, gothic backstory, and Disney’s spooky-funny balance. From the Beating Heart Bride to Constance Hatchaway, we ask what this haunted attic reveals about our fears, our histories, and our love of ghosts.

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Bibliography:

Davison, Carol Margaret. “Southern Gothic: Haunted Houses.” The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, edited by Susan Castillo Street and Charles L. Crow, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 57–74

Donovan-Condron, Kellie. “Twisted Sisters: The Monstrous Women of Southern Gothic.” The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, edited by Susan Castillo Street and Charles L. Crow, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 369–83.

Giles, David. “The Thousandth Happy Haunt: Legends of Burial and Haunting at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.” Western Folklore, vol. 74, no. 3/4, 2015, pp. 297–316.

Martens, Todd. “First Look: Disneyland’s Original Haunted Mansion Returns with a Heartbreaking New Scene.” Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2025.

Steiner, Michael. “Frontierland as Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Architectural Packaging of the Mythic West.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, vol. 48, no. 1, 1998, pp. 2–17.

Surrell, Jason. The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic. Disney Editions, 2009.

Tromp, Marlene. “‘Throwing the Wedding-Shoe’: Foundational Violence, Unhappy Couples, and Murderous Women.” Victorian Review, vol. 20, no. 2, 1994, pp. 36–54.

Truffin, Sherry R. “New Orleans as Gothic Capital.” The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, edited by Susan Castillo Street and Charles L. Crow, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 151–65.

Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. “Hidden Histories: The Many Ghosts of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.” Disney Gothic: Dark Shadows in the House of Mouse. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 29–46.

Dreams, collective trauma, stranger danger, groomer panic, queer death drive/queer evil, and media horror - it's all lurking below the surface in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Bibliography

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.

Kendrick, James. “Razors in the Dreamscape: Revisiting A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Slasher Film.” Cinema Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, Fall 2010, pp. 60-78.

Lieberman, Tucker. “The Trail of His Flames.” The American Reader, vol. 5, no. 1, Fall 2019.

Schildcrout, Jordan. Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater. University of Michigan Press, 2014.

Thomsen, Morten Feldtfos. “‘Evil Never Dies, Right?’ Monstrous Mediation in the A Nightmare on Elm Street Film Series.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, vol. 16, no. 1, 2024.

Part two of our Haunting of Hill House special!

In this episode we discuss Hill House as a character, the origins of the Victorian haunted house trope, and how... every room becomes a mouth!

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

For our very special 13th episode, we present part one of a two-part series on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and its film adaptation The Haunting (1963). In part 1, we talk about the movie vs. the book, approaches to paranormal research, the Cult of True Womanhood, monstrous family systems, and Lesbians!

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram)

[email protected]

Bibliography

“Walking Alone Together: Family Monsters in The Haunting of Hill House” by Richard Pascal

Interview: Laurence Jackson Hyman on his mother Shirley: ‘Her work is so relevant now…’ by Rachel Cooke. The Guardian.

“Opening Up” in Men, Women, and Chain Saws by Carol Clover

The Haunting of Hill House, Introduction by Laura Miller

“Walking Alone Together: Family Monsters in The Haunting of Hill House” by Richard Pascal in Studies in the Novel

Queer for Fear, Episode 4

Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 2, 1966, pp. 151–74. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2711179. Accessed 31 Aug. 2024.

Ballads and broadsides, sailors and skeletons, sisters and sampling, and... have you seen the ghost of John? Join us to talk about ghosts in folk music. We touch on some common themes and formats as well as academic approaches to analyzing and archiving folk tunes/lyrics. Come for the intertextuality, sociofunctionalism, politics, and anthropology-- stay for the boos.

Want to sing along? Make contact:

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo

[email protected]

Bibliography

• "Shall I Sing You a Ghost Story: The Nature and Purpose of Ghost Songs in Maritime Communities of Northern New England and Atlantic Canada" by Richard A. Blake (2019). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports.
• “Ghosts of Voices: Hauntology and Folk Music” by Eamon Byers. Folk Horror Revival: Harvest Hymns. Volume I- Twisted Roots, Volume 1
• "Folk Songs as Socio-Historical Documents" by John Greenway. Western Folklore, vol. 19, no. 1, 1960, pp. 1–9. JSTOR.
• “The English, Scottish, and American Versions of the ‘Twa Sisters’” by Archer Taylor, in The Journal of American Folklore
• “‘The Twa Sisters’—Going Which Way?” by Harbison Parker, in The Journal of American Folklore
• “Magical Corpses: Ballads, Intertextuality, and the Discovery of Murder” by David Atkinson, in Journal of Folklore Research
• “Comparativism and the Functional Contexts of Myths and Rituals”, from Mythography by William Doty
• “Maieutic, Creative Myth: Conveying Values and Systems of Interpreting Reality (Definition, part 2)”, from Mythography by William Doty
• "'Have You Seen The Ghost Of John” is a kids’ song that actually chills'" by Mariah Eakin. AV Club.
• "“Ghost of John”: Appalachia’s Most Ghoulish Lullaby" by Musette. Medium.

Songs

• Alan Mills (The Ghostly Sailors)-Accordion https://youtu.be/CpysXQtf1Y0?si=tbeb8EzPfeSZUpeJ
• Houlihan (The Ghostly Sailors)-Acapella https://youtu.be/k7wbShaiZGg?si=83P6fIghjOiH-_qh
• Have You Seen the Ghost of John (Children Singing) https://youtu.be/6F9mcvX9pXE?si=zoSRCe_c2IM9kCs7
• “Binnorie (The Twa Sisters)” as sung by Custer LaRue ://youtu.be/rLBBg4MjO6o
• The Geography by Belbury Poly
• https://youtu.be/vv4tsUg7MLQ