ABSTRACT
Ghosts, it appears, are growing ever more generic. This paradox is encapsulated in the Derridean understanding of the ghost as ‘repetition and first time’.2 We are faced, on the one hand, with the force of singularity: the singularity of the jolt, of the first time one sees a ghost, or screams at a terrifying turn in a movie. On the other, formulaic repetition: one sees the same ruse again and again. A scream gives way to a chuckle; the horror film fails to horrify, losing the affective charge for which the genre was named. The ghost becomes generic, the very figure of genre. Through singularity and repetition, the ghost figures both the force and depletion of return.
