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Ghost of an Idea

Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia

A critical analysis of the 21st-century fascination with the past, from horror films to haunted music. By William Burns

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“One rarely finds a book that covers so wide a range (music, television, cinema, philosophy) with such authority and insight: whether dealing with Kubrick’s The Shining (on which Burn‘s shines a fresh, condensed light), obscure British TV shows, or unknown Brazilian and Peruvian horror flicks, William Burns has worthy things to say.”
— Dejan Ognjanović, Rue Morgue

The future ain’t what it used to be.

Is nostalgia revitalizing or killing 21st-century culture? The concept of nostalgia has seeped into almost all aspects of modern-day media, none more so than horror culture and its borderlands of Hauntology, Folk Horror, and found footage film.

Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia examines the use and effect of nostalgia in the Horror and Hauntological realms. It asks why these genres hold such a fascination in popular culture, often inspiring devoted fanbases. From Candyman to The Blair Witch Project, and Dark Shadows to American Horror Story, are the folk horror and found footage phenomena significant artistic responses to political, social, and economic conditions, or simply an aesthetic rebranding of what has come before? How has nostalgia become linked to other concepts (psychogeography, residual haunting) to influence Hauntological music such as Boards of Canada or The Caretaker? What can the ‘urban wyrd’ or faux horror footage tell us about our idealized past? And how will these cultures of nostalgia shape the future?

Combining the author’s analysis with first-hand accounts of fans and creators, Ghost of an Idea offers a critical analysis of our cultural quest to recognize, resurrect, and lay to rest the ghosts of past and present, also summoning up those spectres that may haunt the future.

Introduction: The Seductive Liar, or Are We What We Used to Be?

Chapter 1: Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday: The Philosophy of Nostalgia

Chapter 2: The Yearning to Return: Folk Horror and Nostalgia

Chapter 3: The Illusionary Precipice: Found Footage and Nostalgia

Chapter 4: The Longing of the Permanently Lost: Franchise Nostalgia

Chapter 5: An Ethereal Composition of Disjointed Memories: Nostalgia as Catalyst for the New

Chapter 6: The Vice of the Aged: Do They Still Got It or Living Off Past Glories?

Chapter 7: The Enemy of Truth: Is Nostalgia Counter-Revolutionary?

Index

  • New angle on the Folk Horror and Hauntology genres made popular by writers such as Mark Fisher;
  • Folk Horror is a major trend in contemporary horror culture (e.g. the 2021 documentary, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched);
  • Found footage films – a key focus of the book – have a strong presence on all major streaming services and a devoted fanbase;
  • Combines the author’s analysis with first-hand accounts of fans and creators;
  • Interviews with hauntology musicians.

Title: GHOST OF AN IDEA
Subtitle: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia
Author: William Burns
ISBN: 978-1-915316-31-8
Street Date: March 6, 2025
Category: Pop Culture / Hauntology
Retail Price: UK £19.99 / US $27.95
Binding: Paperback
Size: 203mm x 127mm
Pages: 286
Illos: N/A

As the trade paperback, except this special NO-ISBN hardback is exclusive to this website. Because it carries No ISBN number, this edition of the book is off the grid in as much as it doesn’t appear on any database, in any library, cannot be ordered through mainstream bookshops or online retailers. 

 

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Reviews
New Books NetworkRebekah Buchanan
An interview with Ghost of an Idea author William Burns.
Cinema RetroAdrian Smith
“Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror and the Spectre of Nostalgia is a fascinating read, and something which will undoubtedly cause the reader to pause and reflect on their own relationship with the past, and their own ghosts.”
Booklist OnlineA. E. Siraki
“The depth and breadth of works that this book covers make it a boon for academics, despite occasionally veering too much into discussion of contemporary non-horror media. Still, horror buffs who want to dig deeper into the genre will enjoy this book and the interviews in it with folk music and ambient composers like Hawksmoor, Angeline Morrison, and more. ”
Shindig!
Sarah Gregory
“There's so much to get your teeth into here — the familiar and the new. A definite repeat read.”
Shindig!Camilla Aisa
[William Burns' book featured in Camilla Aisa's hauntology music article, A Seancing Song. Shindig! issue 160]
The WireSpenser Tomson
“[William Burns’] approach achieves a delicate balance that understands hauntology's academic bones, but never dresses them up as a Halloween skeleton […] an astute summation of hauntology's current position. Burns also reveals hauntology to be a subject with many unexpected characters and a weird array of influences.”
Rue MorgueDejan Ognjanović
“One rarely finds a book that covers so wide a range (music, television, cinema, philosophy) with such authority and insight: whether dealing with Kubrick’s The Shining (on which he shines a fresh, condensed light), obscure British TV shows, or unknown Brazilian and Peruvian horror flicks, William Burns has worthy things to say.”
fertilitycultFolk Horror Revival & Urban Wyrd Project ⨘
“A well written book, in some instances it really hits the mark perfectly and the film and album lists would prove very useful to both newcomer and those already quite immersed in the fields covered.”
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Videos

William Burns

On the day William Burns was born, crucial scenes for both The Exorcist and The Wicker Man were being filmed, forever marking him as a member of the Haunted Generation. The strange, the eerie, the unsettling, and the obscure have bedevilled him ever since. In search of lost futures, he has stumbled upon many forgotten ghosts and shadowy remembrances. Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia is the culmination of a journey that began in Burns’ 2016 book, The Thrill of Repulsion: Excursions into Horror Culture. “I have always been interested in the strange, the unusual, and the aberrant so the horror genre was a natural fit for my young imagination. As I got older, I came to the realization that horror was not just a genre but also a perspective: a way to see the world that had aesthetic, social, philosophical, and cultural aspects to it. I was born in 1972 and so I am a firm member of what Bob Fisher calls ‘the Haunted Generation,’ a post-baby boomer cohort born between 1965–1980 whose childhood was marked by the joy and terror of growing up in a strange time that melded the paranormal and the scientific, the cutting edge and the nondescript, all broadcast through grainy waves, picked up by shaky antennas, displayed on staticky televisions, and remembered hazily through nostalgia darkly.”

Ghost of an Idea

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