Colin Dickey (born September 3, 1977) is an American author, curator, and critic whose work deals with ghosts, death, and haunting, and explores how these symbols function as metaphors.^[1] He was the Managing Director of the Morbid Anatomy Museum^[2] and is a member of The Order of the Good Death. He currently teaches at National University^[3]

Books

• The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession With the Unexplained^[4]
• Ghostland (2016),^[5] an exploration of America's haunted mansions.^[6]
  • Tiya Miles, writing in The New York Times, calls Ghostland "a capacious geographical synthesis that is both intellectually intriguing and politically instructive."^[7]
  • NPR named Ghostland one of the best books of 2016^[8]
  • Dickey appeared on All Things Considered, where he spoke about the Winchester Mystery House^[9]
• The Morbid Anatomy Anthology (co-edited with Joanna Ebenstein), a collection of works by "scholars, artists and writers working along the intersections of the history of anatomy and medicine, death and the macabre, religion and spectacle."
• Afterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith
• Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius, stories of notable grave robberies, including Haydn and Beethoven^[10]
• Failure! Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices (edited with Nicole Antebi and Robby Herbst)

References in popular culture

• A quote from Ghostland appears in Robert Greene's upcoming film Bisbee '17.^[11]
• Musician Dave Heumann cites Dickey as one of his literary influences.^[12]

Education

Dickey has an MFA in Critical Studies from California Institute of the Arts, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California.^[3]