Scary America: Looking at US Culture Through Horror Cinema 4219-SD0094
The course is meant to familiarize students with both American horror cinema and theories and concepts from cultural studies. We are going to look at the genre’s history and its socio-cultural context. Each class will be focused on one main audiovisual text (a film) and one theoretical text (a chapter or an article), that the students will watch/read in preparation for the class. Each class is planned around a given topic, and explored in-depth in class, where the assigned texts will be put in a broader context by the instructor. This allows the students to engage with the classics of the genre, but also learn about the lesser-known texts that are part of niche horror subgenres, which resonate with tensions crucial for contemporary American cultural climate. Selected examples of class topics include: madness and violence, female heroes and villains (male gaze & female gaze), monsterization of disability (enfreakment), aging bodies (hagsploitation), revenge horror, American adolescence and teen film, queerness and transness on-screen (representation of non-normativity). These topics will be explored in the course with the use of concepts from various fields of cultural studies, such as: disability studies, mad studies, body studies, necropolitics, cultural gerontology, gender & queer studies, and of course, film theory.
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course students:
1. Knowledge
- are aware of the rich and varied history of the horror genre and its many subgenres, as well as their historical and socio-economic contexts
- know the terminology used for in-depth critical film analysis, both on the narrative and visual level
- understand how social and cultural fears contribute to the horror genre, and the theoretical tools that conceptualize them
2. Skills
- can apply key concepts from cultural studies in their analysis of audiovisual media
- can identify and contextualize tropes and motifs of the horror genre
- can analyze primary sources, using close reading
3. Competences
- can participate in team work and group discussions, critically engaging with cultural texts
- can identify and analyze tensions around the representation of the human and non-normativity in American film and popular culture
Assessment criteria
Assessment methods and assessment criteria:
Active participation in class discussions and group work → 30% of the grade
3 short contributions to an online forum (based on a class topic each) → 3 x 10% of the grade
Final project on a chosen topic related to the course → 40% of the grade
Bibliography
Selected primary sources:
Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
The Leech Woman (Edward Dein, 1960)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)
May (Lucky McKee, 2002)
Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama, 2009)
Ma (Tate Taylor, 2019)
Fresh (Mimi Cave, 2022)
Strange Darling (J. T. Mollner, 2023)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024)
Selected secondary sources:
“The Female Avenger, Women's Anger and Rape-Revenge Film and Television” (Margrethe Bruun Vaage, 2024)
“The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Cinema” (Sally Chivers, 2011)
“Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film” (Carol J. Clover, 1992)
“Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema” (Barbara Creed, 2022)
“Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema” (Willow Maclay and Caden Gardner, 2024)
“Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature” (Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, 1997)
“The Shock of Aging (Women) in Horror Film” (Dawn Keetley, 2019)
“Mental Illness in Popular Culture” (Sharon Packer, 2017)
“Queer for Fear. Horror Film and the Queer Spectator” (Heather O. Petrocelli, 2024)
“On the Politics of Ugliness” (Ela Przybylo and Sara Rodrigues, 2018)
“Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture” (David Schmid, 2005)
“Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema” (Angela M. Smith, 2012)
“The Style of Sleaze: The American Exploitation Film, 1959 - 1977” (Calum Waddell, 2020)
Note: The course bibliography may change a little bit, according to the needs and interests of the students.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: