Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is the first book-length study of the uncanny, an important topic for contemporary thinking on literature, film, philosophy, psychoanalysis, feminism and queer history. Much of this importance can be traced back to Freud's extraordinary essay of 1919, 'The Uncanny' (Das Unheimliche).

As a ghostly feeling and concept, however, the uncanny has a complex history going back to at least the Enlightenment. Royle offers a detailed account of the emergence of the uncanny, together with a series of close readings of different aspects of the topic. Following a major introductory historical and critical overview, there are chapters on literature, teaching, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, film, the death drive, déjà vu, silence, solitude and darkness, the fear of being buried alive, the double, ghosts, cannibalism, telepathy, madness and religion.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• List of illustrations
• 1 The uncanny: an introduction
• 2 Supplement: 'The sandman'
• 3 Literature, teaching, psychoanalysis
• 4 Film
• 5 The death drive
• 6 Silence, solitude and...
• 7 Darkness
• 8 Night writing
• 9 Inexplicable
• 10 Buried alive
• 11 Déjà vu
• 12 The double
• 13 Chance encounter
• 14 Cannibalism
• 15 Manifestations of insanity
• 16 A crowded after-life
• 17 To be announced
• 18 Mole
• 19 The 'telepathy effect'
• 20 Phantom text
• 21 The private parts of Jesus Christ
• 22 Book end
• The uncanny: a bibliography

Author notes provided by Syndetics