Ideas worth spreading

The haunting truth of ghost stories

1,730,189 views |

Coya Paz Brownrigg |

TEDxDePaulUniversity

• May 2021

Ghost stories reveal much more than the ghouls and spirits that haunt them. Settle in for a spooky delight as theater educator Coya Paz Brownrigg lays out three types of bone-chilling tales and exhumes the grave truths they hold about longing, meaning and the cultural value of eerie encounters.

Ghost stories reveal much more than the ghouls and spirits that haunt them. Settle in for a spooky delight as theater educator Coya Paz Brownrigg lays out three types of bone-chilling tales and exhumes the grave truths they hold about longing, meaning and the cultural value of eerie encounters.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxDePaulUniversity, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Coya is collecting personal ghost stories and haunting as part of an ongoing creative project. Share yours here.

About the speaker

Coya Paz Brownrigg

Coya Paz Brownrigg

Theater educator

See speaker profile

Coya Paz Brownrigg is a writer, director, scholar and arts administrator with a deep commitment to racial and economic equity in the arts.

Avery F. Gordon | University of Minnesota Press, 2008 | Book

Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination

This is not only a foundational text in thinking through the cultural value of ghost stories, but it is also beautifully written — a joy to read.

Eve Tuck and C. Ree | A Handbook of Autoethnography, Left Coast Press, 2013 | Article

"A Glossary of Haunting"

This is a beautiful, poetic essay on what we might learn from the idea of a haunting.

| Explore

Ghost stories

Hear some Chicago ghost stories, recorded as part of a collaboration between Free Street Theater and the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail. This is my most recent project, and an example of the ways we might use ghost stories to build community connections.

Robert Loerzel | WBEZ, 2013 | Listen

"Curious City: The Story Of Dunning, A ‘Tomb For The Living’"

Learn more about the history of the Dunning asylum.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxDePaulUniversity, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Coya is collecting personal ghost stories and haunting as part of an ongoing creative project. Share yours here.