HCRT-370: Unmasking Horror

Doppelgangers, the uncanny, doubling, masking, and surrogacy-aesthetic interpretations of abjection and otherness have become increasingly accepted in our society, yet what aspects of transgression and self-splitting are still considered taboo? This class will shift and extend conversation about the horrific, grotesque, and spectacular into an empowered and relevant investigation of the role of transformation, masquerade, and duplicity. Monstrosity, abhorrence, and the ways opposition, costuming, and obfuscation are expressed in a variety of media will be studied through historical precedent and contemporary example. Through carefully examining the dichotomies of repulsion and attraction, decay and rebirth, abjection and empowerment, the course will unpack how the repressed, when expressed, can transform into the truly charmed and beautiful. Touchstones may include (but not limited to) reading from Elaine Scarry's On Beauty, Julia Kristeva's Power of Horror, Freud, Laura Mulvey's "Visual and Other Pleasures," Japanese & Chinese ghost fairy tale traditions, Jaeger's Charisma, Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure, Sontag's "Notes on Camp"; films include Lotte Reininger's animations, Corrado Farina's Baba Yaga, Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses, Shindo's Onibaba, Brian de Palma's Sisters; animations inlcude Vince Collins, Eiichi Yamamoto, Bruce Bickford, Paperrad, PFFR; artists include David Altmejd, Stanya Kahn, Sue de Beer, Yayoi Kusama, Alex Bag, Phyllis Galembo, Kalup Linzy; and cultural studies on RuPaul's Drag Race, death rites & rituals, werewolves, ceremonial masks.