The concept of hauntology (hantologie) was introduced by Jacques Derrida in his now well-known book Specters of Marx (1993). Derrida conceived hauntology as a way to explain the return of the past, of lost futures, the ghostly traces that refuse to vanish, and the impossibility of a pure, self-contained “now.”

Although Pussy Riot are no PFLP and their performances operate in a distinctly different register, their cathedral action was primarily political in intent rather than focused on artistic innovation.