Spooky season lasts all year for UQ experts
Most of us only celebrate Halloween each October, but three University of Queensland experts research the strange and spooky all year round, from the history of horror stories to scary costumes.
Renowned fashion historian Honorary Associate Professor Margaret Maynard, from the School of Communication and Arts, said costumes have played an important part of rituals featuring ghosts for more than a thousand years.
“Disguises of the face and body have been a feature of pre-Halloween celebrations as a way of scaring off spirits,” Dr Maynard said.
“Traditional costumes like skeletons and masks are representations of death from the Middle Ages, which early celebrators of Halloween believed mocked death and would ward off evil.”
Image: Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock
Image: Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock
Dr Maynard said the meaning of these costumes changed as Halloween transitioned from a pagan ritual into a Christian celebration.
“In the United States, where Halloween became a popular celebration in the 19th century, disguises were seriously grotesque and mocked the status quo,” Dr Maynard said.
“By the early 20th century, adults and children were wearing homemade outfits, had their faces painted and attended more fun-filled Halloween parties.
“By the 1960s, consumer culture led to a range of costumes being sold, from witches to pirates, and Halloween became an excuse to dress up and have fun.”
Like costumes, ghost stories and horror books have been a staple of spooky celebrations for centuries.
UQ creative writing PhD candidate and award-winning speculative fiction author Joanne Anderton said scary tales had been around since human storytelling began.
“You can find elements of what we now call horror in myths, legends and folktales across cultures and into antiquity,” Ms Anderton said.
Creative writing Senior Lecturer Dr Helen Marshall, who is also an accomplished fiction and non-fiction author, has uncovered evidence that horror as a genre has existed since the medieval times.
“My research reveals historical texts that share some features of horror literature, with a particular focus on gruesome depictions, supernatural entities and demons,” Dr Marshall said.
“Horror literature tends to respond to the fears and anxieties of the society that produces it.
“In the 14th century these anxieties had to do with the suddenness of death, the prevalence of the Black Plague.
“Today, more and more horror writers draw on or echo the kinds of estrangement we face due to technology.”
Image: sjhuls / Adobe Stock
Ms Anderton said the reason people turn to horror – to experience fear – never changes.
Ms Anderton, who is also a judge of several Australian speculative fiction writing awards, said what constitutes a “good” horror book varies.
“Horror is a feeling – something that may seem horrific on the surface can be quite mundane depending on the way you tell it, and the opposite is also true,” Ms Anderton said.
“I want a scary book to lull me into a false sense of security then drag me deeper into a darkness I almost don’t want to leave.”
Image: Dina / Adobe Stock
Image: Dina / Adobe Stock
Dr Marshall believes the best horror stories disarm the reader.
“A good scary story is one that somehow, even if only for a moment, convinces you to let your guard down – sometimes with humour and sometimes with charm.”
Media: UQ communications, communications@uq.edu.au, +61 (0)429 056 139; Dr Margaret Maynard, m.maynard@uq.edu.au; Joanne Anderton, j.anderton@uq.net.au.
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