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Cultural Hauntings: Girlhood Fictions From Working-Poor America

University of Cincinnati

This narrative study chronicles the history of an ethnographic and pedagogical project focused on fourth-grade girls growing up in a working-poor, predominately White community. Central to the project were questions about how language practices are situated in the textures of girls’ lives and become refracted dimensions of voice and identity. The article focuses on the layered meanings of horror fictions. It explores links between girls’ fascination with series horror paperbacks and popular culture influences, moves into the realm of cultural meanings of haunting and horror fiction as it explores community discourses about the supernatural, and examines the psychological meanings of horror fictions and their relationship to the lived experiences of individual girls. Literary readings of the layered meanings of horror fiction for girls growing up in working-poor America are connected to arguments about creating pedagogical practices answerable to the complexity of living, speaking, and reading between worlds divided by social class.

Key Words: social class • girl studies • literacy • horror fiction • urban poverty

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