Social History Ghosts

On 11 March 2011, a massive earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of Northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than 18,000 people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan's greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.

A cultural history of the phenomenon of the 'haunted house' as seen through art, architecture, and ghost stories. What makes a house haunted? Why do some buildings conjure up a reputation for being particularly creepy, while others leave us unmoved? Barring the possibility of a looming afterlife...