Past Anxieties: Defining the Folk Horror Narrative
‘Have you ever heard the term ‘folk horror’ before?’ I asked a colleague of mine: a classics professor. ‘In particular, when describing drama?’
Psychogeography & Landscape in ‘Spirits of Place’: An Interview with Contributors
Spirits of Place is an anthology examining the relationship between place and narrative: how stories, folkloric or historic, become embedded in a location.
The Dreaded Headless Horseman and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
he Headless Horseman captures the imagination like nothing else at Halloween. Regional American history and urban legend influences the interpretation of this apparition more than supposed.
The Indigenous Burial Ground: Urban Legends and Popular Culture
In North America, legends of haunted places often claim they have been built on an “Indian burial ground.” Indigenous burial ground urban legends are so widely shared they’ve become a part of popular culture. Writers used them repeatedly as a literary device in horror until they became a comedic cliché and eventually a meme.
Faces in the Mirror: The Urban Legend of Bloody Mary
Bloody Mary is a scary urban legend that has been told for decades, but what might psychology tell us about its appeal and origins?