The horror reader / edited by Ken Gelder.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gelder, Ken, 1955-

Class of 1953 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Horror tales--History and criticism.

Horror tales.

Horror films--History and criticism.

Horror films.

Physical Description:

xiii, 414 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2000.

Summary:

Horror has been one of the most spectacular and controversial genres in both cinema and fiction -- its wild excesses relished by some, vilified by many others. Often defiantly marginal, it nevertheless inhabits the very fabric of everyday life, providing us with ways of imagining and classifying our world: what is evil and what is good; what is monstrous and what is 'normal'; what can be seen and what should remain hidden.

The Horror Reader brings together 29 key articles to examine the enduring resonance of horror across culture. Spanning the history of horror in literature and film and discussing texts from Britain, the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and Hong Kong, it explores a diversity of horror forms from classic gothic literature like Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, to contemporary serial killers, horror film fanzines and low-budget movies such as The Leech Woman and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The Reader opens with an introduction to 'the field of horror' by Ken Gelder, and each thematic section includes an introductory preface. There is also a comprehensive bibliography of horror literature.

Contents:

Introduction : the field of horror / Ken Gelder

Definition of the fantastic / Tzvetan Todorov

1848: the assault on reason (extract) / Jose B. Monleon

Phantasmagoria and the metaphorics of modern reverie (extract) / Terry Castle

Vampires, breast-feeding, and anxiety (extract) / Joan Copjec

Kristeva, feminity, abjection / Barbara Creed

'In his bold gaze my ruin is writ large' (extract) / Slavoj Zizek

Introduction to monstrous imagination / Marie-Helene Huet

Freaks / Mary Russo

The serial killer as a type of person (extract) / Mark Seltzer

Production and reproduction : the case of Frankenstein (extract) / Paul O'Flynn

Here comes the bride : wedding gender and race in Bride of Frankenstein (extract) / Elizabeth Young

Dialectic of fear (extract) / Franco Moretti

The occidental tourist : Dracula and the anxiety of reverse colonization (extract) / Stephen D. Arata

Vampiric typewriting : Dracula and its media (extract) / Jennifer Wicke

Dr Jekyll's closet (extract) / Elaine Showalter

Tracking the vampire (extract) / Sue-Ellen Case

Female spectator, lesbian specter : The Haunting (extract) / Patricia White

Vampires in Greece (extract) / Ken Gelder

King Kong and the monster in ethnographic cinema (extract) / Fatimah Tobing Rony

Introduction to American horrors (extract) / Gregory A. Waller

Introduction to American gothic (extract) / Teresa A. Goddu

Horrality-the textuality of contemporary horror films / Philip Brophy

The terror of pleasure : the contemporary horror film and postmodern theory / Tania Modleski

Her body, herself (extract) / Carol J. Clover

Fans' notes : the horror film fanzine / David Sanjek

A (sadistic) night at the Opera : notes on the Italian horror film / Leon Hunt

Revenge of the Leech woman : on the dread of aging in a low-budget horror film / Vivian Sobchack

Ghost stories, bone flutes, cannibal countermemory / Graham Huggan

Preposterous Hong Kong horror : Rouge's (be)hindsight and a (sodomitical) Chinese ghost story / Andre Yue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [379]-399) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1953 Fund.

ISBN:

041521355X

9780415213554

0415213568

9780415213561

OCLC:

43096769

Online:

Publisher description