Colin Dickey
Colin Dickey is the author of The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained and Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places.
All Writing
Roundtable
The Indebted Dead
Tracing the history of the Grateful Dead folktale and the evolving obligations of being alive. More
Essay
The City
Necropolis
Colin DickeyThe corpse has proved to be a bedeviling problem for the city—how do we live with our dead? More
Essay
The Future
Quack Prophet
Colin DickeyThe prophecies of Nostradamus were cryptic and garbled—but they also let us see what we wanted to see. More
Essay
Magic Shows
Very Superstitious
Colin DickeyThe science of sympathetic magic, and why it persists. More
Essay
Time
Reelin’ in the Years
Colin DickeyCan there be a more terrifying revelation than the present moment? Reconsidering Virginia Woolf’s time-warped novel... More
Roundtable
Human Trophies
The collection of Japanese war trophies—which included various body parts, including skulls—was, by all accounts, endemic and uncontrollable. When Charles Lindbergh returned to the States after a tour in the Pacific theater, he was asked by customs officers if he was carrying any “human bones” in his luggage. More
Roundtable
The Spoil of Mariners
Of all the dangers that could befall a sailor, scurvy is perhaps the most frightening. More
Roundtable
A Faithful Hound
A thirteenth-century town in France worshiped a greyhound as a saint, but the loyal dog was just one in a line of venerated pets. More
Roundtable
The Addicted Life of Thomas De Quincey
How Thomas De Quincey turned his debilitating addiction to opium into a revival of the English essay. More
Roundtable
A Fire in the Belly
Can drinking too much gin lead to bursting into flames in one's own kitchen? A Dickensian investigation. More
Roundtable
Living in the Margins
In medieval marginalia, you might find complaining monks, a nun breastfeeding a monkey, and sexual wordplay. Oh, and doodles, lots of doodles. More
Roundtable
The Patron Saint of Dark Days
The shortest day of the year can drive anyone a little crazy, including Vincent Van Gogh. More
Roundtable
Skyscrapers of the Dead
While vertical cemeteries may seem like a radical proposition to relieve urban areas, they were first suggested by nineteenth-century cemetery reformers. More
