ALTOONA, Pa. — Penn State Altoona faculty members Brian Onishi, associate professor of philosophy, and Jeff Stoyanoff, assistant professor of English and of women's, gender and sexuality studies, have released a new episode of their "Horror Joy" podcast. In the latest episode, the hosts discuss Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved” as a haunted house and ghost story that forces readers to reckon with the historical traumas of chattel slavery, racism and the “smooth operation” of a world that treats people like property.
Onishi and Stoyanoff outline the novel’s core cast — Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Paul D, and the embodied apparition Beloved — alongside figures like Schoolteacher, noting the book’s basis in the real story of Margaret Garner and its depiction of lynching, abuse and infanticide.
Drawing on scholarship and concepts such as rememory, spectrality and the Gothic tradition, the hosts argue that Morrison rejects easy “Scooby-Doo” reveals or exorcism in favor of communal acknowledgment and reintegration, supporting their broader claim that America itself is haunted while asking how, and whether, joy can be found amid such horror.
The full episode can be accessed on podcast providers or on Red Circle.