Dr Guy Sutton

This year Guy will be sharing a talk from his extraordinary programme of public lectures, which cover a jaw-droppingly diverse range of topics from climate change to warfare, music, witchcraft and space travel! In this talk Guy will showcase his unbridled energy and expertise in a session exploring the conception and portrayal of the ghost in literature, with reference to the work of MR James, WW Jacobs and Stephen King. Beginning with an overview of masterpieces such as Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad, The Monkey's Paw and The Shining, we will then consider the psychology and psychiatry of the ghost story. We will think about what is real, the neuroscience of being scared and what happens in the brain when we experience an apparition. The lecture concludes with a contemplation of why we like to be scared and how the ghost story reflects societal constructs of death and the afterlife.