August 04, 2019   |   0 comments

Thomas Sheridan discusses hauntology and cult pop culture of the past. Part two is here

(Stream / download audio at bottom of page)

In his book Ghosts of My Life, Mark Fisher defined hauntology as ”’music and culture that draws from and examines a sense of loss of a post war utopian progressive modernist future that was never quite reached.’ The 1970s was a decade rich with hauntological themes, many of which stemmed from both the promise and the threat of the post-war world, and later continued to be felt well into the 1980s.

Many TV shows, movies and books of the period – particularly the 1970s – are remembered (and mis-remembered) with near-religious reverence, while cliques of contemporary artists and writers wander the corridors of the past in search of inspiration. From cult TV shows such as Sapphire and Steel, The Tomorrow People, and Children of the Stones, to the mind-warping writing of John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, and Erich von Däniken, and from folk horror and dystopian sci fi to stories for children far beyond anything being written for adults today, we probe the uncanny underbelly of decades gone by.

Previous interviews with Thomas Sheridan.

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’
Various ‘A Field in England OST’