Global Screens & Local Screams: Contemporary International Horror Cinema

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Shocking, brutal, sensational, lurid, and just plain gross: no genre enjoys more diehard fans and steadfast detractors than horror cinema. Fan or foe, these movies provoke rich debates about media theory, aesthetics, and cultural politics for how they voice a range of fears and anxieties. This course introduces students to contemporary international horror cinema with the goal of understanding how this maligned genre explores themes of difference concerning race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality. The horror genre is at once local and global. These harrowing stories simultaneously articulate regional folklore, myths, and cultural traditions, and they connect viscerally with audiences for how they articulate our shared humanity. What goes bump in the night, you ask? This class will answer that question. Timid students need not enroll.