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Studies in Media Topics (298-0-25)

Topic

Race, Gender & Sexuality in the Contemporary Horro

Instructors

Nicola Lynn Mccafferty

Meeting Info

University Hall 112: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Since the early days of the genre, horror film has explored cultural anxieties and biases about race, gender, and sexuality, often depicting these anxieties through allegorical tales of monsters, ghosts, and other inhuman forms who provoke fear and violate so-called social "norms." Examining films from the 1970s onward, this course investigates how the "monstrous other" of horror offers ways of understanding and resisting enduring fears around race, gender, and sexual difference. Blending fascination with fear and desire with repulsion, horror film moves us beyond a binary of positive and negative representations and toward the more complex allure of the monstrous, and we ask why audiences find pleasure in the terror that horror affords. Through weekly screenings, readings, and discussions, students will explore contemporary issues, themes, and trends in horror cinema. At the end of the course, students will have a foundation in horror genre studies, and will be able to think broadly about how norms are constructed and contested through depictions of monsters in film and media.