Ghosts Were People Too

About Ghosts Were People Too

Where do ghosts dwell? It seems just about everywhere: television, film, photography, theater, video games, folk songs, and even your family vacations. Oh the humanties! Join your hosts Quest and Annabelle on cultural ghost tour in Ghosts Were People Too, a podcast that investigates ghosts through the lens of the arts & humanities.

Publisher

Annabelle Bonebrake and Quest Zeidler

Category

arts · history · religion & spirituality · science · society & culture · tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Oct 2022

Latest episode

28 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

20 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Jul 2026

   19 - Macbeth Part 2: Red-Handed, Ghosts and Guilt

   Banquo! Lady Macbeth! Shakesqueer! The Monster's Body Is a Cultural Body! Charles Manson! Playboy! Join us for Macbeth, Part 2, in which we explore changing beliefs about ghosts from the ancient world to Shakespeare's England and discuss how audiences, past and present, might understand Banquo's ghost. From there, we turn to Lady Macbeth's fractured experience of guilt and time before considering the many ways filmmakers have reimagined the play to reflect the anxieties of their own historical moments. Make contact: @ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram) gwp2pod@gmail.com (mailto:gwp2pod@gmail.com) Read Quest's article! “Revenge of the Monster Queer: The Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Liberation of Drag" in The Monstrous Utopian (https://app.perusall.com/catalog/book/9781040683958), ed. Michael Chemers and Analola Santana, Routledge Bibliography: Didion, Joan. The White Album. Simon & Schuster, 1979. Freebury-Jones, Darren, and Rachel Aanstad. “Did Shakespeare's Audiences Believe in Ghosts?” Shakespeare and Friends. YouTube, 18 Jan. 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br4N4RA0j_s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br4N4RA0j_s). Accessed 28 July 2026. Love, Heather. “Macbeth: Milk.” Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon, Duke University Press, 2011, pp. 201–208. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1134f1s.26 (https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1134f1s.26). Accessed 28 July 2026. Puhvel, Martin. “The Perplexing Ghost of Banquo: Ambiguity and Its Roots.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, vol. 94, no. 3, 1993, pp. 287–302. Williams, Deanne. “Mick Jagger Macbeth.” Macbeth and Its Afterlife, edited by Peter Holland, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 145–160. Films: Macbeth. Directed by Orson Welles, Republic Pictures, 1948. Macbeth. Directed by Roman Polanski, Columbia Pictures, 1971. Macbeth. Directed by Justin Kurzel, StudioCanal, 2015. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Directed by Joel Coen, A24 and Apple Original Films, 2021.

2. 

   24 Apr 2026

   18 - Macbeth Part 1: Is This a Dagger? The Great Chain of Being, Blood, Milk, and Gender

   Is this a dagger, an inanimate ghost, or something more Freudian? In this, the first of a two-part episode, Annabelle and Quest venture onto the blasted heath to explore the apparitions and queer hauntings of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We talk about Quest’s work on a recent production of the play at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and break down concepts regarding gender, kingship, violence, and the disruption of natural order. Make contact: @ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram) gwp2pod@gmail.com (mailto:gwp2pod@gmail.com) Read Quest's article! “Revenge of the Monster Queer: The Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Liberation of Drag" in The Monstrous Utopian (https://app.perusall.com/catalog/book/9781040683958), ed. Michael Chemers and Analola Santana, Routledge Bibliography Bersani, Leo. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” In Is the Rectum a Grave?: And Other Essays. University of Chicago Press, 2010. Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” In Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Updated edition with a new preface by the author. Princeton University Press, 2015. Jones, Gwilym. “Macbeth: supernatural storms, equivocal earthquakes” In Shakespeare’s Storms. Manchester University Press, 2015. Love, Heather. “Macbeth: Milk.” In Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon. Duke University Press, 2011. Menon, Madhavi. “Queer Shakes.” In Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon. Duke University Press, 2011. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Columbia University Press, 1985. Varnado, Christine. “Getting Used, and Liking It: Erotic Instrumentality and the Go-Between.” In The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in Early Modern Literature. University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

3. 

   28 Oct 2025

   17 - Ouija Boards (Happy Halloween 2025!)

   In this Halloween special, Quest and Annabelle talk about the poetics, play, and "dangers" of the Ouija board. Make contact: @ghostswerepeopletoo (tumblr/instagram) gwp2pod@gmail.com Bibliography:“‘The Medium is the Message in the Spacious Present’: Channeling, Television, and the New Age” by Hugh Urban, in Handbook of Spiritualism and Channeling, ed. Cathy Gutierrez “Parlor Games: Play and Social Life in the Haunted House” in Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture by Simone Natale “Wars and Ouija: Spiritualism in the Twentieth Century” in Calling the Spirits by Lisa Morton “An Aesthetic History of the Ouija Board’ by Jesse Ryan Erickson, in Printing History “James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, and the Poetics of Ouija” by Helen Sword in American Literature, vol. 66, no. 3, 1994 https://doi.org/10.2307/2927604

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

19 ratings

Contact Ghosts Were People Too

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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