What is a ghost? This talk will consider the history of the ghost in comparative perspective, and then take the particular case of the ghost as an emergent phenomenon in early medieval Chinese writings to illustrate how the ghost both represented a challenge to epistemological systems and yet was captured within epistemological systems. I will discuss three early examples of haunting that collectively demonstrate how the figure of the ghost called—and continues to call—into question the stable ontology of the human, and then turn to a final example that foregrounds the mediality of the ghost, and therefore, of the human.