American Horror Cinema 4219-SD075-OG

We will be investigating the ways in which horror cinema handles cultural fears and anxieties connected with the changing socio-cultural, political and economic landscape. Apart from the diachronic approach we will be also examining synchronic theoretical clusters such as horror and gender, horror and race, horror and consumerism, horror and queer etc. The theoretical schools employed in our research will include, among others, psychoanalytic feminism, reader-response theories and affect theories, gender and queer studies, postcolonialism and whiteness studies, etc.

Schedule:
I. Introduction
1. Genre theory and concepts
2. A short history of the genre and its subgenres

II. Selected Topics
1. The Birth of Contemporary Horror (e.g. Psycho, The Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
2. Body Horror Then and Now (e.g. David Cronenberg, Brandon Cronenberg, The Soska Sisters)
3. Reactionary Horror of the 1980s: the Slasher (select slasher cycles)
4. Ecohorror (e.g. The Ruins, Mimic, Lovely Dark and Deep)
5. Desire in horror (e.g. The Hunger, Jacob's Wife, Suitable Flesh)
6. Others and Othering in Horror (e.g. Hellbender, US, Candyman, Somewhere Quiet, Ready or Not)
7. Horror of/in Social Media (e.g. Bodies Bodies Bodies, Unfriended, Cam)
8. Postmodern Horror: self-reflexivity and camp
9. Horror and New Media (games, graphic novels, TV series, etc)

Type of course

general courses

Mode

Classroom

Course coordinators

Agnieszka Kotwasińska

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students:
1. KNOWLEDGE:
- have broadened their knowledge of the history of American horror cinema and of film studies and cultural studies terminology
- understand how social and cultural fears, characteristic of American society emerge over time
- are aware of the complex nature of genre cinema and its import for national identity formation and identity politics debates

2. SKILLS:
- can analyze the cinematic image in terms of social fears and anxieties over politics, economy, gender, racial relations, sexualities etc.
- can critically apply theory and terminology of genre film and television in order to arrive at their own interpretations of various cinematic representations
- can define different types of narratives, popular motifs, formal features and subgenres of horror and can describe horror genre formation from the 1960s till today

3. COMPETENCES:
- know how to work in groups and engage in academic debates
- understand the role of media in shaping collective understanding of social exclusion, othering and the processes of naming and creating fears to national identity or wellbeing
- identify and determine dilemnas connected to non-normative representations in horror with a special emphasis on social exclusion processes

Assessment criteria

Special emphasis is placed on students' active participation. During the course we will read selected academic essays and theoretical analyses.

Active class participation (incl. Kampus activities): 30%
Final project (an essay of min. 1500 words + multimedia elements): 70%

92-100% - 5 (97-100% - 5!)
84-91% - 4,5
76-83% - 4
68-75% - 3,5
60-67% - 3

Bibliography

Selected bibliography:

Bacon, Simon, ed. The Evolution of Horror in the Twenty-First Century. United States: Lexington Books, 2023.
Benshoff, Harry, ed. A Companion to the Horror Film. United Kingdom: Wiley, 2017.
Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror: Or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Coleman, Robin R. Means. Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1993.
Gelder, Ken, ed. The Horror Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.
Grant, Barry Keith, ed. The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
Halberstam, Jack. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
Hanich, Julian. Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2011.
Hantke, Steffen, ed. American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Harrington, Erin. Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Humphries, Reynold. The American Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
Jackson, Kimberly. Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Murray, Robin L.., Heumann, Joseph K.. Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen. United Kingdom: Nebraska, 2016.
Phillips, Kendall R. Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005.
Weinstock, Jeffrey, ed. The Monster Theory Reader. United Kingdom: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.
Shail, Robert and Samantha Holland, Steven Gerrard, eds. Gender and Contemporary Horror in Television. United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2019.
Shaviro, Stephen and Mark Storey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to American Horror. United States: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Readings might be changed at a later date.

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 4219-SD075-OG in USOSweb