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The Ethics of Horror

Author: Michael J. Burke
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666910856
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The Ethics of Horror: Spectral Alterity in Twenty-First Century Horror Film examines the theme of spectral haunting in contemporary American horror cinema through the lens of ethical responsibility. Arguing that moral obligation can manifest as terror to the complacent self, the text extracts this dimension of ethics in twenty-first century horror films. Drawing on the ethical theories of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which posit the asymmetrical obligation of the self to the other, Michael Burke highlights how recent horror films portray spectral antagonists as ethical others that hound protagonists and summon them to an accountability that they can neither evade nor ever completely fulfill. Burke observes the resulting destabilization of notions of ethical responsibility and justice in a variety of contemporary horror subgenres, including technohorror, haunted house and zombie films.

The Philosophy of Horror

Author: Thomas Fahy
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813173701
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Sitting on pins and needles, anxiously waiting to see what will happen next, horror audiences crave the fear and exhilaration generated by a terrifying story; their anticipation is palpable. But they also breathe a sigh of relief when the action is over, when they are able to close their books or leave the movie theater. Whether serious, kitschy, frightening, or ridiculous, horror not only arouses the senses but also raises profound questions about fear, safety, justice, and suffering. From literature and urban legends to film and television, horror’s ability to thrill has made it an integral part of modern entertainment. Thomas Fahy and twelve other scholars reveal the underlying themes of the genre in The Philosophy of Horror. Examining the evolving role of horror, the contributing authors investigate works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), horror films of the 1930s, Stephen King’s novels, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining (1980), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Also examined are works that have largely been ignored in philosophical circles, including Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965), Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985), and James Purdy’s Narrow Rooms (2005). The analysis also extends to contemporary forms of popular horror and “torture-horror” films of the last decade, including Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), as well as the ongoing popularity of horror on the small screen. The Philosophy of Horror celebrates the strange, compelling, and disturbing elements of horror, drawing on interpretive approaches such as feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and psychoanalytic criticism. The book invites readers to consider horror’s various manifestations and transformations since the late 1700s, probing its social, cultural, and political functions in today’s media-hungry society.

Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide

Author: Kristen Renwick Monroe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691151431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
How should Augustine, Plato, Calvin, Kant, Nietzsche, and Bonhoeffer be read today, in light of postcolonial theory and twenty-first-century understandings? This book offers a reader-friendly introduction to Christian liberationist ethics by having scholars "from the margins" explore how questions of race and gender should be brought to bear on twenty-four classic ethicists and philosophers. Each short chapter gives historical background for the thinker, describes that thinker's most important contributions, then raises issues of concern for women and persons of color.

Dark Thoughts

Author: Steven Jay Schneider
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810847927
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Is horror a fundamentally nihilistic genre? Why are those of us who enjoy horror films so attracted to watching things on screen that in real life we would almost certainly find repellent? Do monster movies have a deleterious moral effect on their viewers? In seeking to answer such questions, as well as a host of related ones, Dark Thoughts reveals that our fascination with horror cinema, and the pleasure we take in it, is in the end simply a natural extension of a philosopher's inclination to wonder. This is a collection of highly engaging and provocative essays by top scholars in the increasingly interrelated fields of Philosophy, Film Studies, and Communication Arts that deal with the epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and genre dynamics of horror cinema past and present. Contributors include Curtis Bowman, No l Carroll, Elizabeth Cowie, Angela Curran, Cynthia Freeland, Michael Grant, Matt Hills, Deborah Knight, George McKnight, Ken Mogg, Aaron Smuts, Robert C. Solomon, and J.P. Telotte. Over the past several years, one of the hottest topics in the realm of philosophical aesthetics has been cinematic horror. The emotional effects it has on audiences, the mysterious metaphysics of its impossible beings, the controversial ethics of its violent contents-these are just a few of the concerns to have drawn the attention of scholars and students alike. . .not to mention the genre's legions of fans. Since the publication of No l Carroll's groundbreaking study, The Philosophy of Horror; or, Paradoxes of the Heart (1990), and including most recently Cynthia Freeland's The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror (2000), a plethora of articles have been authored by seemingly normal philosophers about the decidedly abnormal activities of the antagonists of fright flicks.

Fear and Nature

Author: Christy Tidwell
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027109043X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Ecohorror represents human fears about the natural world—killer plants and animals, catastrophic weather events, and disquieting encounters with the nonhuman. Its portrayals of animals, the environment, and even scientists build on popular conceptions of zoology, ecology, and the scientific process. As such, ecohorror is a genre uniquely situated to address life, art, and the dangers of scientific knowledge in the Anthropocene. Featuring new readings of the genre, Fear and Nature brings ecohorror texts and theories into conversation with other critical discourses. The chapters cover a variety of media forms, from literature and short fiction to manga, poetry, television, and film. The chronological range is equally varied, beginning in the nineteenth century with the work of Edgar Allan Poe and finishing in the twenty-first with Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro. This range highlights the significance of ecohorror as a mode. In their analyses, the contributors make explicit connections across chapters, question the limits of the genre, and address the ways in which our fears about nature intersect with those we hold about the racial, animal, and bodily “other.” A foundational text, this volume will appeal to specialists in horror studies, Gothic studies, the environmental humanities, and ecocriticism. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Kristen Angierski, Bridgitte Barclay, Marisol Cortez, Chelsea Davis, Joseph K. Heumann, Dawn Keetley, Ashley Kniss, Robin L. Murray, Brittany R. Roberts, Sharon Sharp, and Keri Stevenson.

The Politics of Horror

Author: Damien K. Picariello
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030420159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The Politics of Horror features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore the connections between horror and politics. How might resources drawn from the study of politics inform our readings of, and conversations about, horror? In what ways might horror provide a useful lens through which to consider enduring questions in politics and political thought? And what insights might be drawn from horror as we consider contemporary political issues? In turning to horror, the contributors to this volume offer fresh provocations to inform a broad range of discussions of politics.

The Philosophy of Horror

Author: Noel Carroll
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113596503X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in having their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified?

Recreational Terror

Author: Isabel Cristina Pinedo
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438416164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.

Deformed and Destructive Beings

Author: George Ochoa
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786486546
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Why are audiences drawn to horror films? Previous answers to that question have included everything from a need to experience fear to a hunger for psychotherapy. This critical text proposes that the horror film's primary purpose is to present monsters, best understood as deformed and destructive beings. These monsters satisfy the audience's desire to know these beings, in particular those beings too fantastic and dangerous to know in real life. The text illuminates many aspects of the horror film genre, including epistemology, ethics, evaluation, history, monster taxonomy, and filmmaking techniques.

A Quiet Place of Violence

Author: Allen Morris Jones
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780982860144
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In this landmark work, Allen Morris Jones spends a year exploring one of the wildest ecosystems in North America, hunting and examining the philosophical issues of blood sport. In the process, he creates both a compelling defense for the hunt as well as one of the tradition’s first formal ethics. Jones argues that hunting must be right in that it returns us to the environment from which we evolved. When we hunt, we’re no longer watching nature, we’re participating in it as essential members: predator and prey. From this premise, it follows that those aspects of hunting that tend to return us to the world are more ethical, while those aspects that displace us—such as the use of modern technology—are less ethical. This simple, compelling thesis is supported by example, by the highly-personal narrative of a conscionable hunter coming to terms with the central passion of his life. And it’s a thesis that finally has profound implications for the way we each approach the natural world. If you’re a hunter, A Quiet Place of Violence will help put into words those aspects of the hunt that you have found most essential; and if you’re a non-hunter, it will offer insight into the allure of this otherwise puzzling pursuit.