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From the eighteenth century to the modern period, German authors have been obsessed with uncanny phenomena that blur the line between the natural world and the supernatural world of ghosts, spirits, and magic. We will explore the encounter with otherworldly phenomena in this course with a special emphasis on the status of literature as a play of semblance or collection of shadows. Why have ghost stories been so persistent in the modern era when science and reason are said to dominate our understanding of the world? Is the occult the dark side of science? What kind of knowledge does literature yield? What can literature tell us about phenomena that are random, obscure, or inexplicable? To what degree does literature enable us to interact with figures no longer bodily present?