Studies in Literature and Film (386-0-20)

Topic

Horror Film

Instructors

James Hodge
847 4915675
University Hall Room 408

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 3-410: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This course introduces students to the study of the modern American horror film. The course will focus on one major feature-length film per week proceeding roughly chronologically while studying powerful and often influential examples of various subgenres of horror from the slasher film to the supernatural and more. We will analyze films textually; and we will also focus on acquiring critical vocabularies for discussing horror cinema. Our prevailing concern will be with bodies -- bodies onscreen and the body of spectators. Horror cinema may arguably be defined by its ability to impact and affect the body of the film spectator through various conventions of portraying the body. With this in mind we'll be asking what the relation is exactly between the images onscreen and the experience of horror cinema in the theater/living room couch/etc. A focus on bodies naturally lends itself to a range of approaches scholarship across disciplines to studying the body, e.g. as racialized, gendered, sexualized, but also, specifically in horror, bodies as gasping, violated, screaming, tense, mutilated, incapacitated, nauseated or otherwise rendered abject, or existing perilously on the edge of humanity. To catalyze discussion we will read a variety of secondary sources from academic film studies and popular journalism and other sources. There will be a few lectures but we will mainly proceed via short lecture and guided group discussion.

Teaching Method

Discussion; short lecture; writing assignments.

Class Materials (Required)

None.

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area