Gordon's approach focuses on society, by stating how hauntings help show us invisible forces and powers. Tuck and Ree focus more on stories and culture showing how reflecting on those stories can help people confront and resolve their past traumas. Gordon uses ghosts as a tool to help people understand social life whereas Tuck and Ree use them as guides for reflection. Together the readings helped me see that ghosts are active figures from history than interact with people to help raise awareness and bring about resolution. I realize now that haunting is ongoing, and it challenges me to look closer at histories that are most of the time ignored or erased.

The readings differ, however, in how they define hauntings and their purposes. Gordon’s Her Shape and His Hand defines hauntings as simply the existence of ghosts within narratives defined by their colonizers. Hauntings, according to the novel, are people’s wrong doings still having affects into the modern day, creating ghosts out of the living and dead. It also emphasizes, rather than ghosts themselves, focuses on how ghosts are often haunting historical narratives, and can be found in their cracks. While many try to pose history as straightforward and completely sensical, the reading encourages readers to think deeply about how the truth is built on the subjective point-of-views of multiple individuals. On the other hand, A Glossary of Hauntings depicts hauntings as more of a proactive activity by ghosts. Hauntings are a way for ghosts to exact revenge on those who did them wrong, not necessarily in an extremely explicit way, but in small vengeances and inconveniences. Tuck and Ree’s work demands that the audience see ghosts as more than just figures who haunt narratives, but as people who have been stripped of their ability to express more than just pain. These dualing perspectives forced me to consider how ghosts can both be active in their own haunting, but can also be limited to the spaces they haunt.

• Casey Frasco

Shape of Her Hand serves as the prologue of the story it is telling, an establishment of what is to come. The author makes it apparent that although they may be knowledgeable in the societal connotations of hauntings, they certainly aren't an expert and they're as curious as you, the reader. They choose to write the chapter from a nonfiction perspective when wanting to catch us up with everything they know up to this point. It's only when they begin to have no answers that their voice is heard and the reader is made aware that they serve not as an answer but a mere interpretation. Glossary of Hauntings on the other hand takes an abstract approach by converting the prologue into the epilogue of sorts with the glossary providing prior meaning to what will be questioned. The authors take a much more intimate approach in deciding to write the majority of the text in the first person. They seem rather standoffish, noting that they themselves don't trust us, the reader, with the contents that they're willing to share with us. Tuck and Lee construct a web of sorts that tie together hauntings with fictional and historical events to give new meaning to what it means to be haunted.

I feel that by reading both texts consecutively my understanding of ghosts and hauntings as a whole has shifted. I won't sit here and act like all my thoughts and prayers have been answered because of course they haven't, this is but the intro of what is to come. Unlike before I now have a sense that this topic is something we can grasp and interpret in more than one way. Although it is unlikely we will ever come to a conclusive explanation for the supernatural, we can gather our knowledge from our history and experiences to come up with a meaning of our own which may satisfy our own curiosity and image of life and death.

Both of these texts do a great job on touching between history and hauntings. They both address how history and hauntings can be intertwined, but they bring out these ideas in different ways. Gordon focuses on the concept of haunting as a sociological phenomenon, exploring how historical trauma and unresolved social injustices can manifest in the present. In contrast, Tuck and Ree focus more on a definitional and analytical approach to various terms and concepts associated with haunting, often dissecting the different forms of hauntings. They bring out terms such as settler colonialism, haunting of data, and just offer a structured vocab for engaging with the complex ideas. The key difference that they have between them is how their articles/text are formatted or presented. Where Gordon’s more narrative and exploring the impact of hauntings, Tuck and Ree are more systematic, and definitional unpacking of its various angles.

I would say that it expanded my thinking by giving me more info on how hauntings are not just literal “ghosts”, but how they can be events that haunt us. It helped me understand how even the land that we live on can be haunted, due to the many historical events that have occurred and how that can affect us as a society. These were never things I thought about, or really tried to dive into before, so it truly helped me think more critically on the topic of hauntings. I was also able to expand my thinking or knowledge of hauntings through the many examples that we had in Tuck and Ree’s article because I had never heard some of these words, nor the examples they gave, so they truly helped to expand my previous thinking. I am not one who would watch horror films or even really know of the stories they told, therefore being able to learn about this in Tuck and Ree’s glossary expanded my thinking and gave me a better foundation to what potentially will be coming up this quarter. 

- Kimberly Castellanos

On the other hand, Eve Tuck and C. The vocabulary of Ree's short story attaches ghosts with a more poetic and individual tone, describing how ghosts are experienced, interact, and are translated intermittently. Spread beyond structural forces, their vocabulary reveals how ghosts are represented through gestures, memories, and everyday life, especially in the context of indigenous existence and storytelling. The two books must be read together to deepen our understanding of persecution. Gordon reminds us of its collective and systemic aspects, while Tuck and Ree remind us of its personal and intimate aspects. Together, they demonstrate that haunting is once a way of staying with justice and history that is actually past.

- Ranya Mali

However, in the second reading by Tuck and Ree, we see the idea shifting the focal point from haunting as something disruptive to our day to day life to something relatable. In the "Glossary of Haunting" haunting is shown as not only a reminder of buried injustices, similar to Gordon, but also as a specific presence that purely denies and fights against events that are attempted to be burried. The first chapter specifically seems to relate this to Native Americans and the pure violence they faced from colonials. Tuck and Ree show ghosts and explain them as witnesses or victims to violence, but also as survivors that keep the story going. All in all, these two readings share similar ideas and expand into different directions from each other, but build on the idea that haunting is something throughout time and evasive to violence or burrying.

-Summit Grewal

In these two texts there are similar ideas that pop up like how the ‘haunts’ or ‘ghosts’ are invisible cloaks and or strings of power weaving throughout society and literature affecting and not excluding anyone. Although they each have their own way of expressing this central theme as Gorden primarily uses more physical examples like the story of the title of the book, “The shape of her hand” and the dynamics of power are shown by the raping of her great-great-grandmother while Tuck and Ree uses more abstract psychological examples such as the character ‘O’ who is a spirit that affects the ‘good and bad’ of the worlds problems. 

These two texts has made me understand more how strings of power affect others and how the ‘haunting’ of such over-reach can be used to reference events in everyday life such as tariffs affecting not just the middle and lower class with higher prices but also the rich, who has to pay much more for the increase in their imported goods. Even though that power is a physical limiter, it affects worldwide and for people like me, a college person this effect is substantial and in the future may even make me have to think if I can afford something in the future, which is not only a physical limiter of what I can get, its a mental one too.

After reading these two works, I can definitively say that my eyes have been opened to thinking about the world in a different way, thinking about the mechanisms of society and trying to understand where the "evil" might be mislabeled in the stories. I think these two readings matched well together as they both talked about similar ideas relating more to society and history. I now also understand that the idea of being "haunted" still surrounds us today in everything we do as it is not necessarily a supernatural force you only think of when watching a show or reading a book, but it can also come from the history books in how people reacted from the past and the geenrations that have come after them.

-Kaitlyn Kang

-Justine Chen

The reading by Gordon was able to expand my knowledge on the subject, as the author portrays ghosts as a representation of other impactful things, such as society and power. Gordon illustrates the prevalence of hauntings in social systems, where we are dominated by aspects of history that have been tweaked over time. Many times, a story is changed and we are left with the real truth hovering above our heads. There are parts of history that remain in question because we can never get the full story. In this way, history and ghosts are one in each other, leaving traces but not always quite being seen.

In the other text, Tuck and Ree identify these concepts as the unfairness and violence of life and history. In this sense, hauntings are more portrayed as something extremely negative, in which there are ideas of violence and revenge mentioned. When these ideas are left unresolved, a cause and effect relationship is born as they hang over society as a whole. Both of these texts prove the true impact of hauntings and ghosts, not just as entertainment in the media, but a force that pulls the strings in the world around us.

-Alex Jang

In Her Shape and His Hand, Gordon defines haunting as “how that which appears to not be there is often a seething presence.” It is the tangible impact of an overwritten history. As an example, she tells the story of Patricia Williams’ great-grandmother, a slave owned by the lawyer Austin Miller. Already, this neatly demonstrates Gordon’s point: the owner, the dominant perspective, is given a name- a glimpse into the “complex personhood” the author explains, a picture of memories and connections and nuance often denied to those classed as “other”- while the enslaved woman is simply someone’s relative. Her Shape is the negative space of her existence, the ghost of a disregarded life, while His Hand is the power and impact Miller held over not only Williams’ great-grandmother, but her entire family. This is just one of many examples Gordon uses to depict the impact of power imbalances in hauntings and the postmodern approach we must take to understanding them. 

Meanwhile, A Glossary of Haunting, which is written in the unique format of an appendix without a “host” text, has a lighter tone (once even suggesting that the author ate the host text) but takes the topic of hauntings no less seriously. Tuck and Ree posit that haunting is not a reason to seek a resolution of past and present wrongs, but rather the resolution itself, demanding recognition of these wrongs. In fact, attempting to clear away the history of violence, colonialism, and genocide is a disservice to these ghosts- arguing that it’s all in the past ignores the still-prevalent repercussions. The authors compare common plotlines in American horror with those of more contemporary Japanese horror. While the American films favor innocent protagonists using problem-solving to get rid of an undeserved haunting, the Japanese films acknowledge the injustices faced by the ghosts and the vicious cycle of trying to escape violence by passing it off to another. In the context of colonialism, this reflects the popular narrative of ghosts as trespassers rather than the other way around, and the unwillingness to recognize that “the settler hero has inherited the debts of his forefathers”. 

- Kai Amen

ern superstition nor individual psychosis; it is a generalizable social phenome-non of great import” and how its “the cost of subjugation.”

I’ll be honest, the readings were a little difficult for me to understand at first, but after careful thinking, I eventually got the gist. Both readings use haunting as a framework to understand social life. I noticed the readings both also mention that haunting reveal what is hidden, repressed, or erased by a higher power/dominant figure. But where they differ in this context is that Avery Gordon discusses sociological discourse but Tuck and Ree center around settler colonialism. The readings really helped me to understand how a haunting can actually apply to political views and how ghosts can represent people who have been wronged and lost to history due to a higher power simply not wanting them there. 

Breanna Cruz

Tuck and Ree expanded this by showing how haunting is carried through memory, stories, and emotions. Their focus on Indigenous dispossession showed me that haunting isn’t just about the past but about ongoing trauma that affects communities today. I connected with the way they used terms like justice and revenge, because it made me think about how stories and culture keep these ghosts alive as guides rather than just shadows.

Together, these readings made me realize that haunting is not something to fear but something to pay attention to. It asks me to look closer at histories I might not notice and to listen to the “ghosts” that are reminders of injustice. I came away understanding that haunting isn’t just about the dead, it’s about how we live with what has been silenced.

- Jordan Stiefel

The two readings differ in how they explain hauntings. You see, in "Her Shape and His Hand," it says hauntings happen in the smallest parts of history. These ghosts aren't active; they anger, however, reminding us of our past wrongs and how we've been blinded by lies, and the truth has been hidden. On the other hand, Tuck and Rees's A glossary of hauntings describes hauntings as a more present and prominent thing. Both stories showed that ghosts are the voices of people and histories that were pushed aside, or other times they will simply just leave quietly, showing the cracks in the true history.To be honest, ghosts aren't just about the past; they form the person we are right now. (x Guillory)