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Philosophic Reflections on Cinematic Horror
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SUBJECTS
Film & Television » Film (General)
Film & Television » Film Studies
Philosophy
REVIEWS
"This philosophical collection provides an interesting perspective on the film horror genre that would prove beneficial for cinema studies, film history, and film genre courses. Recommended."
— CHOICE
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, Noël 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 Noël 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.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Steven Jay Schneider is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Harvard University and in Cinema Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has published widely on the horror film and related genres, and is author of the forthcoming Designing Fear: An Aesthetics of Cinematic Horror. Steven is editor of New Hollywood Violence and The Horror and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmares, and co-editor of Understanding Film Genres and Horror International, all forthcoming. For more information, please visit his "website".
Daniel Shaw is Professor of Philosophy and Film at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. He is Editor of the journal Film and Philosophy, and secretary-treasurer of its sponsor organization, the Society for the Philosophic Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts. He has published articles in The Journal of Value Inquiry, Kinoeye, and Film/Literature Quarterly. His reviews also appear periodically in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and in Choice magazine.
