How do "horror media" frame the body as a site of experience and object of discourse? How do they confront questions of social repression, conflict and identity? How can horror appear to function as one of popular culture’s most conservative genres, and at the same time, one of its most radical? And how do contemporary television and video games recycle and adapt horror cinema’s thematic concerns?
This course will introduce students to the vast and growing body of critical and theoretical work devoted to horror media, and will equip them to understand and respond to key debates regarding horror’s forms, functions, effects and affects. Topics covered include: horror and the everyday, horror and class/ race/ gender, horror aesthetics, horror audiences, uncanny spaces, undead allegories, horror and technology, televisual horror and interactive horror.