Linnie Blake
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719075933
- eISBN:
- 9781781700914
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719075933.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book explores the ways in which the unashamedly disturbing conventions of international horror cinema allow audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of the recent past in a manner that has ...
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This book explores the ways in which the unashamedly disturbing conventions of international horror cinema allow audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of the recent past in a manner that has serious implications for the ways in which we conceive of ourselves both as gendered individuals and as members of a particular nation-state. Exploring a wide range of stylistically distinctive and generically diverse film texts, its analysis ranges from the body horror of the American 1970s to the avant-garde proclivities of German Reunification horror, from the vengeful supernaturalism of recent Japanese chillers and their American remakes to the post-Thatcherite masculinity horror of the UK and the resurgence of hillbilly horror in the period following 9/11 USA. In each case, it is argued that horror cinema forces us to look again at the wounds inflicted on individuals, families, communities and nations by traumatic events such as genocide and war, terrorist outrage and seismic political change, wounds that are all too often concealed beneath ideologically expedient discourses of national cohesion. Thus proffering a radical critique of the nation-state and the ideologies of identity it promulgates, horror cinema is seen to offer us a disturbing, yet perversely life affirming, means of working through the traumatic legacy of recent times.Less
This book explores the ways in which the unashamedly disturbing conventions of international horror cinema allow audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of the recent past in a manner that has serious implications for the ways in which we conceive of ourselves both as gendered individuals and as members of a particular nation-state. Exploring a wide range of stylistically distinctive and generically diverse film texts, its analysis ranges from the body horror of the American 1970s to the avant-garde proclivities of German Reunification horror, from the vengeful supernaturalism of recent Japanese chillers and their American remakes to the post-Thatcherite masculinity horror of the UK and the resurgence of hillbilly horror in the period following 9/11 USA. In each case, it is argued that horror cinema forces us to look again at the wounds inflicted on individuals, families, communities and nations by traumatic events such as genocide and war, terrorist outrage and seismic political change, wounds that are all too often concealed beneath ideologically expedient discourses of national cohesion. Thus proffering a radical critique of the nation-state and the ideologies of identity it promulgates, horror cinema is seen to offer us a disturbing, yet perversely life affirming, means of working through the traumatic legacy of recent times.
Jason C. Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By ...
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This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.Less
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.
Jason C. Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The subject of this chapter is the growing popularity of Christian alternatives to Halloween haunted houses. The most famous of these is Keenan Roberts's Hell House, a multiscene morality play that ...
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The subject of this chapter is the growing popularity of Christian alternatives to Halloween haunted houses. The most famous of these is Keenan Roberts's Hell House, a multiscene morality play that uses the techniques of horror entertainment to illustrate both a general and a specific narrative of social and political decline. These phenomena became very popular — attracting the attention of both supporters and critics — and explicitly engage the hot‐button political issues central to New Christian Right activism and organizing. Hell Houses' individual scenes illustrate to adolescents the harms (such as abortion, gay weddings, and school shootings) awaiting them in a society that — nominally committed to tolerance and social harmony — has unwittingly drawn them toward hellfire.Less
The subject of this chapter is the growing popularity of Christian alternatives to Halloween haunted houses. The most famous of these is Keenan Roberts's Hell House, a multiscene morality play that uses the techniques of horror entertainment to illustrate both a general and a specific narrative of social and political decline. These phenomena became very popular — attracting the attention of both supporters and critics — and explicitly engage the hot‐button political issues central to New Christian Right activism and organizing. Hell Houses' individual scenes illustrate to adolescents the harms (such as abortion, gay weddings, and school shootings) awaiting them in a society that — nominally committed to tolerance and social harmony — has unwittingly drawn them toward hellfire.
Robert C. Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- November 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780195145502
- eISBN:
- 9780199834969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019514550X.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no ...
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Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no enjoying of horror.Less
Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no enjoying of horror.
Laura Helen Marks
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042140
- eISBN:
- 9780252050886
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but ...
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This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but also transformative, and preoccupied with gender, sexuality, race, and time. Pornographic films enthusiastically expose the perceived hypocrisy of this Victorianness, rhetorically equating it with mainstream, legitimate culture, as a way of staging pornography’s alleged sexual authenticity and transgressive nature. Through an analysis of porn set during the nineteenth century and porn adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this book shows how these adaptations expose the implicit pornographic aspects of “legitimate” culture while also revealing the extent to which “high” and “low” genres rely on each other for self-definition. In the process, neo-Victorian pornographies draw on Gothic spaces and icons in order to situate itself as this Gothic other, utilizing the Gothic and the monstrous to craft a transformative, pornographic space. These neo-Victorian Gothic pornographies expose the way the genre as a whole emphasizes, navigates, transgresses, and renegotiates gender, sexuality, and race through the lens of history and legacy.Less
This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but also transformative, and preoccupied with gender, sexuality, race, and time. Pornographic films enthusiastically expose the perceived hypocrisy of this Victorianness, rhetorically equating it with mainstream, legitimate culture, as a way of staging pornography’s alleged sexual authenticity and transgressive nature. Through an analysis of porn set during the nineteenth century and porn adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this book shows how these adaptations expose the implicit pornographic aspects of “legitimate” culture while also revealing the extent to which “high” and “low” genres rely on each other for self-definition. In the process, neo-Victorian pornographies draw on Gothic spaces and icons in order to situate itself as this Gothic other, utilizing the Gothic and the monstrous to craft a transformative, pornographic space. These neo-Victorian Gothic pornographies expose the way the genre as a whole emphasizes, navigates, transgresses, and renegotiates gender, sexuality, and race through the lens of history and legacy.
Julia Round
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496824455
- eISBN:
- 9781496824509
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496824455.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the ...
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This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the notorious girls’ mystery comic Misty (IPC, 1978-80), considering its influences, themes, visuals, plots, and use of Gothic symbols. Containing exclusive interview material with the comic’s creators and editorial team, rare scripts and photographs, and surveying the entire archive of Misty stories, it preserves and analyzesMisty for fans and scholars.
By exploring and defining the particular type of mystery and fear that this comic offered, the strange case of Misty also becomes a tool to develop existing Gothic scholarship and identify a new and under-theorised subgenre. Gothic for Girls challenges and instructs its readers in a number of ways: offering warnings and moral lessons, exposing societal expectations and limitations, and embracing the liminality and Otherness of childhood.Less
This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the notorious girls’ mystery comic Misty (IPC, 1978-80), considering its influences, themes, visuals, plots, and use of Gothic symbols. Containing exclusive interview material with the comic’s creators and editorial team, rare scripts and photographs, and surveying the entire archive of Misty stories, it preserves and analyzesMisty for fans and scholars.
By exploring and defining the particular type of mystery and fear that this comic offered, the strange case of Misty also becomes a tool to develop existing Gothic scholarship and identify a new and under-theorised subgenre. Gothic for Girls challenges and instructs its readers in a number of ways: offering warnings and moral lessons, exposing societal expectations and limitations, and embracing the liminality and Otherness of childhood.
Thomas Barker
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888528073
- eISBN:
- 9789882204751
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888528073.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In the two decades since the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, Indonesia cinema has become one of the most productive and exciting film industries in Asia. From a position in the 1990s when local ...
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In the two decades since the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, Indonesia cinema has become one of the most productive and exciting film industries in Asia. From a position in the 1990s when local films were on the cultural periphery, they are now part of the mainstream with two new films in the cinemas every week. This book traces how the film industry reformed and returned to popularity and conceptualises it as a process of going mainstream. It overturns long held paradigms of national cinema and statism to see the film industry as pop culture in which market mechanisms are determinant. In going mainstream, new independent-minded filmmakers representing new creativity had to accommodate with capital and producers from old production companies. Appeal to audiences has resulting in the reimagining of the horror film and its traumas and the representation of new kinds of piety in a new subgenre Islamic themed films. Yet legacy structures and players remain, as the film industry has struggled to overcome regulation and censorship and the oligopoly of senior producers. In catering to a growing audience, the exhibition sector has become the focus of new investment as it becomes a site for competing local operators and global capital. The book argues for a reconceptualization of Indonesian cinema as pop culture with consequences to how Asian cinema is studied.Less
In the two decades since the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, Indonesia cinema has become one of the most productive and exciting film industries in Asia. From a position in the 1990s when local films were on the cultural periphery, they are now part of the mainstream with two new films in the cinemas every week. This book traces how the film industry reformed and returned to popularity and conceptualises it as a process of going mainstream. It overturns long held paradigms of national cinema and statism to see the film industry as pop culture in which market mechanisms are determinant. In going mainstream, new independent-minded filmmakers representing new creativity had to accommodate with capital and producers from old production companies. Appeal to audiences has resulting in the reimagining of the horror film and its traumas and the representation of new kinds of piety in a new subgenre Islamic themed films. Yet legacy structures and players remain, as the film industry has struggled to overcome regulation and censorship and the oligopoly of senior producers. In catering to a growing audience, the exhibition sector has become the focus of new investment as it becomes a site for competing local operators and global capital. The book argues for a reconceptualization of Indonesian cinema as pop culture with consequences to how Asian cinema is studied.
Fred Botting
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077548
- eISBN:
- 9781781701904
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077548.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to ...
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Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. This book, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity. Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, it advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Sigmund Freud's idea of the death drive.Less
Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. This book, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity. Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, it advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Sigmund Freud's idea of the death drive.
Ann Davies
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719073649
- eISBN:
- 9781781702093
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719073649.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude ...
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Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a ‘lost golden age’ of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoro's films reveal in fact a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema. This book is a full-length study of the director's work, from his early social realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror film. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis, while simultaneously exploring the function of the director in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics, and the question of national cinema in an area—the Basque Country—of heightened national and regional sensitivities.Less
Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a ‘lost golden age’ of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoro's films reveal in fact a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema. This book is a full-length study of the director's work, from his early social realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror film. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis, while simultaneously exploring the function of the director in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics, and the question of national cinema in an area—the Basque Country—of heightened national and regional sensitivities.
Jack Fennell
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620344
- eISBN:
- 9781789623741
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620344.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Mythology and Folklore
This book looks at Irish Gothic and horror texts, in both English and Irish, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, examining how this kind of fiction represented ...
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This book looks at Irish Gothic and horror texts, in both English and Irish, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, examining how this kind of fiction represented the cultural and political concerns of the day through the deployment of monsters, both as characters and as representative figures. Monsters disrupt both our definition of ‘history’ (as a record of past events arranged into a narrative structure) and our scientific, political, or ‘common sense’ understanding of what is possible or impossible; the monster exists outside any notion of a universal morality (or even moral relativism), and with its strange biology it complicates ideologies of gender and race. To be confronted by a monster is to witness the breakdown accepted models of reality, and plunges the subject into a nihilistic world where human action is meaningless. Since Irish history is often conceived of as a sequence of ‘ruptures’ (e.g. the Plantations, the 1641 Rebellion, the Great Famine, the Anglo-Irish War and the Troubles), monstrosity is an apt lens through which to scrutinise Irish culture. Each chapter of this book looks at a different category of monster in turn, and looks at the distinctive ways in which they rupture human history.Less
This book looks at Irish Gothic and horror texts, in both English and Irish, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, examining how this kind of fiction represented the cultural and political concerns of the day through the deployment of monsters, both as characters and as representative figures. Monsters disrupt both our definition of ‘history’ (as a record of past events arranged into a narrative structure) and our scientific, political, or ‘common sense’ understanding of what is possible or impossible; the monster exists outside any notion of a universal morality (or even moral relativism), and with its strange biology it complicates ideologies of gender and race. To be confronted by a monster is to witness the breakdown accepted models of reality, and plunges the subject into a nihilistic world where human action is meaningless. Since Irish history is often conceived of as a sequence of ‘ruptures’ (e.g. the Plantations, the 1641 Rebellion, the Great Famine, the Anglo-Irish War and the Troubles), monstrosity is an apt lens through which to scrutinise Irish culture. Each chapter of this book looks at a different category of monster in turn, and looks at the distinctive ways in which they rupture human history.
Mary Douglas
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199265237
- eISBN:
- 9780191602054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199265232.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Focuses on the absence of ancestor cults in the Bible, and notes that the ground already covered in the book indicates that the priestly editors of the Pentateuch in the sixth and fifth centuries ...
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Focuses on the absence of ancestor cults in the Bible, and notes that the ground already covered in the book indicates that the priestly editors of the Pentateuch in the sixth and fifth centuries bce, and their interpretation of monotheism, make it unlikely that there would have been room for such an idea. Considers the limited role of the dead in biblical Israel in the context of the major advance that was monotheism, and asks whether Leviticus represents a Utopian religion or a real one that was actually practiced in the past, emphasizing the intellectual consistency of the Pentateuch in its uncompromising monotheism. The question is asked as to whether Israel ever had an ancestral cult, and the biblical evidence against such a cult is reviewed. The possible benefits of an ancestor cult in taking the blame are discussed, along with some alternative views to this (notably, the horror of death), and the possibility of the forcible suppression of ancestor cults as part of a centralizing government programme (here certain parallels are drawn with other cultures, and the cult of purgatory is discussed). Other ways in which cults of the dead can fade are discussed in the last part of the chapter; these include the secularizing effect of modernization, intergenerational tension, the character of the resource base in relation to the fate of ancestor cults (as illustrated by religious dynamism in the Calabari Delta of Nigeria), religious change instigated by changing regimes in which either the old or the young may become ascendant, and the position of eighth‐century Israel as having everything that would favour a revolt by the young – thus setting a trail for the priestly editors that had been laid centuries before, and embodied the central doctrine of monotheism.Less
Focuses on the absence of ancestor cults in the Bible, and notes that the ground already covered in the book indicates that the priestly editors of the Pentateuch in the sixth and fifth centuries bce, and their interpretation of monotheism, make it unlikely that there would have been room for such an idea. Considers the limited role of the dead in biblical Israel in the context of the major advance that was monotheism, and asks whether Leviticus represents a Utopian religion or a real one that was actually practiced in the past, emphasizing the intellectual consistency of the Pentateuch in its uncompromising monotheism. The question is asked as to whether Israel ever had an ancestral cult, and the biblical evidence against such a cult is reviewed. The possible benefits of an ancestor cult in taking the blame are discussed, along with some alternative views to this (notably, the horror of death), and the possibility of the forcible suppression of ancestor cults as part of a centralizing government programme (here certain parallels are drawn with other cultures, and the cult of purgatory is discussed). Other ways in which cults of the dead can fade are discussed in the last part of the chapter; these include the secularizing effect of modernization, intergenerational tension, the character of the resource base in relation to the fate of ancestor cults (as illustrated by religious dynamism in the Calabari Delta of Nigeria), religious change instigated by changing regimes in which either the old or the young may become ascendant, and the position of eighth‐century Israel as having everything that would favour a revolt by the young – thus setting a trail for the priestly editors that had been laid centuries before, and embodied the central doctrine of monotheism.
Stefano Baschiera and Russ Hunter (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693528
- eISBN:
- 9781474421997
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693528.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The first book-length academic investigation of Italian horror cinema, from the silent era to the present, this collection brings together for the first time a range of contributions aimed at a new ...
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The first book-length academic investigation of Italian horror cinema, from the silent era to the present, this collection brings together for the first time a range of contributions aimed at a new understanding of the genre, investigating the different phases in its history, the peculiarities of the production system, the work of its most representative directors (Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and the wider role it has played within popular culture.Less
The first book-length academic investigation of Italian horror cinema, from the silent era to the present, this collection brings together for the first time a range of contributions aimed at a new understanding of the genre, investigating the different phases in its history, the peculiarities of the production system, the work of its most representative directors (Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and the wider role it has played within popular culture.
Mary Shelley
David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262533287
- eISBN:
- 9780262340267
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262533287.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an intellectually and socially precocious eighteen-year-old author during a cold ...
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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an intellectually and socially precocious eighteen-year-old author during a cold and rainy summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the dramatic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his stitched-together creature can be read as the ultimate parable of scientific hubris. Victor, “the modern Prometheus,” tried to do what he perhaps should have left to Nature: create life. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms—as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction—Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility. This edition of Frankenstein pairs the original 1818 version of the manuscript—meticulously line-edited and amended by Charles E. Robinson, one of the world’s preeminent authorities on the text—with annotations and essays by leading scholars exploring the social and ethical aspects of scientific creativity raised by this remarkable story. The result is a unique and accessible edition of one of the most thought-provoking and influential novels ever written. Essays by Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Heather E. Douglas, Josephine Johnston, Kate MacCord, Jane Maienschein, Anne K. Mellor, Alfred NordmannLess
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an intellectually and socially precocious eighteen-year-old author during a cold and rainy summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the dramatic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his stitched-together creature can be read as the ultimate parable of scientific hubris. Victor, “the modern Prometheus,” tried to do what he perhaps should have left to Nature: create life. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms—as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction—Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility. This edition of Frankenstein pairs the original 1818 version of the manuscript—meticulously line-edited and amended by Charles E. Robinson, one of the world’s preeminent authorities on the text—with annotations and essays by leading scholars exploring the social and ethical aspects of scientific creativity raised by this remarkable story. The result is a unique and accessible edition of one of the most thought-provoking and influential novels ever written. Essays by Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Heather E. Douglas, Josephine Johnston, Kate MacCord, Jane Maienschein, Anne K. Mellor, Alfred Nordmann
Calum Waddell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474409254
- eISBN:
- 9781474449625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474409254.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations - blaxploitation, horror and ...
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What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations - blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation - indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, The Style of Sleaze maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.Less
What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations - blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation - indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, The Style of Sleaze maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.
Linnie Blake
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719075933
- eISBN:
- 9781781700914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719075933.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter reveals that this study is engaged with a number of debates drawn from horror film scholarship, trauma theory, post-colonial studies and cultural studies. This chapter also discusses ...
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This chapter reveals that this study is engaged with a number of debates drawn from horror film scholarship, trauma theory, post-colonial studies and cultural studies. This chapter also discusses that horror cinema's specific sub-genres, such as the onryou, the necrophiliac romance, the hillbilly horror adventure and others have been shown not only to allow for a mediated engagement with acts so disgusting or violent that their real-life realisation would be socially and psychologically unacceptable, but for a re-creation, re-visitation or re-conceptualisation of traumatic memories that lie buried deep within the national psyche; memories themselves so outrageous that their very actuality as past events appears a logical impossibility. Within a traumatised culture in which hegemonic conceptions of national identity are loudly contested by dissenting groups whose challenges are nonetheless marginalised or suppressed by their economic and political masters, horror cinema can be seen to fulfill an additional function. This chapter highlights how horror cinema's socially engaged deployment of humorous pastiche and affectionate parody might bring forth a new form of subjectivity from the trauma of the past, unbinding the wounds of the nation and in so doing offering them the opportunity to heal.Less
This chapter reveals that this study is engaged with a number of debates drawn from horror film scholarship, trauma theory, post-colonial studies and cultural studies. This chapter also discusses that horror cinema's specific sub-genres, such as the onryou, the necrophiliac romance, the hillbilly horror adventure and others have been shown not only to allow for a mediated engagement with acts so disgusting or violent that their real-life realisation would be socially and psychologically unacceptable, but for a re-creation, re-visitation or re-conceptualisation of traumatic memories that lie buried deep within the national psyche; memories themselves so outrageous that their very actuality as past events appears a logical impossibility. Within a traumatised culture in which hegemonic conceptions of national identity are loudly contested by dissenting groups whose challenges are nonetheless marginalised or suppressed by their economic and political masters, horror cinema can be seen to fulfill an additional function. This chapter highlights how horror cinema's socially engaged deployment of humorous pastiche and affectionate parody might bring forth a new form of subjectivity from the trauma of the past, unbinding the wounds of the nation and in so doing offering them the opportunity to heal.
Chi-Yun Shin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099722
- eISBN:
- 9789882207028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099722.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the “Asia Extreme” label of London-based Tartan Films and its relation with recent East Asian horror films. It examines Tartan's marketing strategies and its aspiration to ...
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This chapter examines the “Asia Extreme” label of London-based Tartan Films and its relation with recent East Asian horror films. It examines Tartan's marketing strategies and its aspiration to expand to global markets including the U.S. It focuses on its horror titles, not only because they have become the most prominent and leading examples of the label, but also because the rise of Asia Extreme has coincided with the phenomenal success of “Asian horror” with branches such as “J-horror” and “K-horror,” which have been celebrated as producing the most original and innovative horror movies of the last decade. It examines the critical reception of the most “notorious” Asia Extreme titles —Audition, The Isle, and Oldboy in the UK and the US to understand the different discourses through which the Asia Extreme films are evaluated and mediated.Less
This chapter examines the “Asia Extreme” label of London-based Tartan Films and its relation with recent East Asian horror films. It examines Tartan's marketing strategies and its aspiration to expand to global markets including the U.S. It focuses on its horror titles, not only because they have become the most prominent and leading examples of the label, but also because the rise of Asia Extreme has coincided with the phenomenal success of “Asian horror” with branches such as “J-horror” and “K-horror,” which have been celebrated as producing the most original and innovative horror movies of the last decade. It examines the critical reception of the most “notorious” Asia Extreme titles —Audition, The Isle, and Oldboy in the UK and the US to understand the different discourses through which the Asia Extreme films are evaluated and mediated.
Johnny Walker
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748689736
- eISBN:
- 9781474416009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748689736.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British ...
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Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British horror in the past, and sheds light on one of the most dynamic and distinctive – yet scarcely talked about – areas of contemporary British film production. Considering high-profile theatrical releases, including The Descent, Shaun of the Dead and The Woman in Black, as well as more obscure films such as The Devil’s Chair, Resurrecting the Street Walker and Cherry Tree Lane, Contemporary British Horror Cinema provides a thorough examination of British horror film production in the twenty-first century.Less
Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British horror in the past, and sheds light on one of the most dynamic and distinctive – yet scarcely talked about – areas of contemporary British film production. Considering high-profile theatrical releases, including The Descent, Shaun of the Dead and The Woman in Black, as well as more obscure films such as The Devil’s Chair, Resurrecting the Street Walker and Cherry Tree Lane, Contemporary British Horror Cinema provides a thorough examination of British horror film production in the twenty-first century.
L. Andrew Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037092
- eISBN:
- 9780252094385
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037092.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Commanding a cult following among horror fans, Italian film director Dario Argento is best known for his work in two closely related genres, the crime thriller and supernatural horror. In his four ...
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Commanding a cult following among horror fans, Italian film director Dario Argento is best known for his work in two closely related genres, the crime thriller and supernatural horror. In his four decades of filmmaking, Argento has displayed a commitment to innovation, from his directorial debut with 1970's suspense thriller The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to 2009's Giallo. His films, like the lurid yellow-covered murder-mystery novels they are inspired by, follow the suspense tradition of hard-boiled American detective fiction while incorporating baroque scenes of violence and excess. The book uses controversies and theories about the films' reflections on sadism, gender, sexuality, psychoanalysis, aestheticism, and genre to declare the anti-rational logic of Argento's oeuvre. Approaching the films as rhetorical statements made through extremes of sound and vision, the book places Argento in a tradition of aestheticized horror that includes Marquis de Sade, Thomas De Quincey, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Hitchcock. It reveals how the director's stylistic excesses, often condemned for glorifying misogyny and other forms of violence, offer productive resistance to the cinema's visual, narrative, and political norms.Less
Commanding a cult following among horror fans, Italian film director Dario Argento is best known for his work in two closely related genres, the crime thriller and supernatural horror. In his four decades of filmmaking, Argento has displayed a commitment to innovation, from his directorial debut with 1970's suspense thriller The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to 2009's Giallo. His films, like the lurid yellow-covered murder-mystery novels they are inspired by, follow the suspense tradition of hard-boiled American detective fiction while incorporating baroque scenes of violence and excess. The book uses controversies and theories about the films' reflections on sadism, gender, sexuality, psychoanalysis, aestheticism, and genre to declare the anti-rational logic of Argento's oeuvre. Approaching the films as rhetorical statements made through extremes of sound and vision, the book places Argento in a tradition of aestheticized horror that includes Marquis de Sade, Thomas De Quincey, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Hitchcock. It reveals how the director's stylistic excesses, often condemned for glorifying misogyny and other forms of violence, offer productive resistance to the cinema's visual, narrative, and political norms.
Philip Tallon
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199778935
- eISBN:
- 9780199919109
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778935.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The problem of evil has been a major focus in philosophy of religion for the last fifty years. But the academic literature has shown a bias against including aesthetic or artistic considerations in ...
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The problem of evil has been a major focus in philosophy of religion for the last fifty years. But the academic literature has shown a bias against including aesthetic or artistic considerations in defending God’s goodness in the face of evil. This work seeks to combat this trend by laying out a methodology for how theological aesthetics can interact with theodicy (the defense of God). This work resuscitates an older tradition of theodicy that includes artistic and aesthetic values in discussing God’s goodness in the midst of evil. Augustine’s vision of cosmic harmony provides a foundation for discussing the relationship between beauty and evil. Two contemporary themes complete the picture. Tragedy and horror illuminate another aesthetic dimension of the experience of evil in the world. The darker side of aesthetics shows more of evil and suffering’s disvalue, but also offers a richer understanding of the Christian response to the problem of evil.Less
The problem of evil has been a major focus in philosophy of religion for the last fifty years. But the academic literature has shown a bias against including aesthetic or artistic considerations in defending God’s goodness in the face of evil. This work seeks to combat this trend by laying out a methodology for how theological aesthetics can interact with theodicy (the defense of God). This work resuscitates an older tradition of theodicy that includes artistic and aesthetic values in discussing God’s goodness in the midst of evil. Augustine’s vision of cosmic harmony provides a foundation for discussing the relationship between beauty and evil. Two contemporary themes complete the picture. Tragedy and horror illuminate another aesthetic dimension of the experience of evil in the world. The darker side of aesthetics shows more of evil and suffering’s disvalue, but also offers a richer understanding of the Christian response to the problem of evil.
Jason Jacobs
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198742340
- eISBN:
- 9780191695018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198742340.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Television drama in the late 1940s seemed to have a continuing uncertainty about the themes, form, and style it was taking. This brings to fore the ways in which the television service during this ...
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Television drama in the late 1940s seemed to have a continuing uncertainty about the themes, form, and style it was taking. This brings to fore the ways in which the television service during this period was reddening itself with a prominent aid from television drama. Even though the post-war period saw an increase in the amount of drama on screen, repeat telecast of the plays was still considerable more reliable. The fact that mystery-murder and ‘horror’ productions were preferred during the post-war period along with drama with wartime themes, is exemplified by the late 1940s drama schedules of producing plays of the Gothic, supernatural, or thriller genres, generically known by television management as ‘Horror Plays’. The reopening of post-war service saw technical and stylistic changes such as those regarding camera movements, along with changes in programme content and scheduling.Less
Television drama in the late 1940s seemed to have a continuing uncertainty about the themes, form, and style it was taking. This brings to fore the ways in which the television service during this period was reddening itself with a prominent aid from television drama. Even though the post-war period saw an increase in the amount of drama on screen, repeat telecast of the plays was still considerable more reliable. The fact that mystery-murder and ‘horror’ productions were preferred during the post-war period along with drama with wartime themes, is exemplified by the late 1940s drama schedules of producing plays of the Gothic, supernatural, or thriller genres, generically known by television management as ‘Horror Plays’. The reopening of post-war service saw technical and stylistic changes such as those regarding camera movements, along with changes in programme content and scheduling.
