The Philosophy of Horror (The Philosophy of Popular Culture)

Condition exactly as described, arrived quickly and well packaged. Very pleased.

Excellent.

When I read Thomas Roger's Salon interview with Thomas Fahy I was seized with a desire to read this book. I received a review copy of the hardback edition for Shock Room Horror.Fahy and his fellow writers display impressive academic authority on topics ranging from "Ideological Formations of the Nuclear Family in The Hills Have Eyes" to "Zombies of the World, Unite: Class Struggle and Alienation in Land of the Dead" and "Grotesque, Sublime, and Postmodern Transformations in Patrick Suskind's Perfume." Given the background and professional credits of these scholarly authors you might think this is not going to be a light or entertaining read. I had the same feeling when I looked at the table of contents. Once I began reading, however, I was delighted to find that most of the essays are thought provoking and far more accessible than I imagined.Highlights:In "Horror and the Idea of Everyday Life: On Skeptical Threats in Psycho and The Birds" Philip J. Nickel poses the argument that "horror's bite...is a malicious ripping-away of...intellectual trust, exposing our vulnerabilities in relying on the world and on other people." This ripping-away is, however, far from detrimental to our well-being. In fact it is necessary for us to occasionally admit the delusion of our security in order to achieve "clarity about our actual situation" and to "realize that we can still go on, even in the absence of perfect certainty."Thomas Fahy wrote "Hobbes, Human Nature, and the Culture of American Violence in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood." Fahy begins with Thomas Hobbes' assertion that a sovereign must provide moral justice in a world otherwise made chaotic by our natural tendency toward self-preservation at the expense of others. He then turns to the narrative of In Cold Blood to examine what happens in a close-knit society when the sovereign (in this case, the highly respected farmer Herb Clutter) is removed by an act of random, apparently inexplicable violence.John Lutz considers the manner in which Stanley Kubrick opened up on a larger canvas the themes of masculinity, cycles of violence, and oppression in his adaptation of Stephen King's novel. This chapter is titled "From Domestic Nightmares to the Nightmare of History: Uncanny Eruptions of Violence in King's and Kubrick's Versions of The Shining." I strongly recommend the essay to fans who have seen the film numerous times, because I think you will find surprising, new insights into an adaptation that has been unfairly maligned by some critics over the years. It only deepened my appreciation for the ways in which Kubrick and his writing collaborator Diane Johnson took time to study the themes and motifs in King's novel. The team didn't simply shoot a movie version of the book. They created a richly layered, dynamic visual equivalent for every significant aspect of the story. Their version provided a historical and social context framing the domestic abuse, without sermonizing.Anyone who rails against the genre because it presents disturbing and indelible images, or displays the worst of human actions, fails to recognize the valid and complex reasons why horror has lasted so long, and the extent to which it can both validate and challenge our deepest emotions. Seen together, the essays in The Philosophy of Horror demonstrate the range and diversity of purposes served by horror films and fiction.

Still reading. I read a lot of books at once and move around from book to book. I always love non fiction and psychology is one of my fave non fiction type books.

This book suffers for having a weak connection to the series that applies philosophy to various aspects of pop culture. The first essays in this collection make rather tenuous connections to philosophy, whether it be Descartes or Hobbes. But in doing that, the analyses themselves suffer for being rather superficial and offering little more than what the movie itself is clearly already communicating. For example, applying Marxist theory to Land of the Dead. While the movie itself isn't necessarily applying Marx, the class issues already embedded into the movie are merely explained a bit further here, which in the end leaves the level of insight feeling rather thin. I prefer my criticism to unveil something more unconscious or surprising. The two essays I found quite worthwhile were Lorena Russell's essay about the representation of the nuclear family in the two versions of The Hills Have Eyes, and David MacGregor's Johnston essay on kitsch and camp.

Love horror and want to truly understand what scares people. You get some insights here. Recommended!

A really enlightening book for the philosopher in you! Presents all kinds of interesting questions that you probably never thought about before.

Such a great book