This paper traces a broader canon of Chicago ghost stories centered on climate awareness. Shifting focus to the ecological aspects of touristic ghost narratives is a way of closely analyzing how urban transformation creates ghosts in the forms of pollution, land degradation, and social disruption.
Paper long abstract
This paper does the work of tracing out a broader canon of Chicago ghost stories centered on climate awareness which could be drawn into the popular lexicon. Shifting focus to the ecological aspects of touristic ghost narratives is a way of closely analyzing how urban transformation creates ghosts in the forms of pollution, land degradation, and social disruption. Ghost stories mesh soul and space, creating an invitation to pull back the veil and look for that which has been concealed behind it. It is a uniquely well-suited medium for investigating how narrative acts as a construction material to build spatial awareness, providing blueprints for tenancy. Inhabiting a city is a tenuous thing, change is always in progress and daily existence is rarely static. The physical city consists of specific, constructed spaces where pollution can be seen. These curated channels keep out the permeating feeling of larger scale emergency. The Chicago River is a place where the failings of this concealment become evident and the source of ghost stories read from popular documentations and from resident interviews.