This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016. This volume comprises numerous academic papers concerning essential subjects in relation to fear, horror and terror, from cinematic representations and their subsequent responses, to first person accounts of terror by way of literature and journalism. Key scholars are employed to develop these important research areas as they provide new insights into cultural experiences and evaluations of fear, horror and terror, and their consequent analysis. Contributors also explore cross-cultural fear, the memorialisation of violence, and female experiences of fear represented through literature, theatre, and cinema. Valuable research is also demonstrated by way of the conceptualisation and management of fear, including the control of public fear in relation to mental illness, along with significant insights concerning depictions of sexual violence, the concept of the sublime in relation to the visualisation of the universe, and the relationship between scales of fright and the bulk of the on-screen monster.

This volume is a collection of essays whose diversity of insights and methodologies facilitates a kaleidoscopic look at a universally-recognizable cluster of phenomena and experiences of fear, anxiety, horror, and terror that often defy straightforward categorization or even description.

This eBook records the proceedings of the 3rd Annual 'Fear, Horror, and Terror' conference, which was held at Mansfield College, Oxford in September 2009. A group of academics from disparate subject areas, including literature, film studies, religious studies, social psychology, and psychoanalysis, came together to discuss fear, horror, and terror.

From Frankenstein and Dracula to Psycho and The Chainsaw Massacre, horror fiction has provided our culture with some of its most enduring themes and narratives. Considering horror fiction both as a genre and as a social phenomenon, Joseph Grixti provides a theoretical and historical framework for reconsidering horror and the cultural apparatus that surrounds it. First published in 1989, this book looks at shifts in the genre’s meaning – its fascination with excess, its commentaries on the categories and boundaries of culture – and at interpretations of horror from psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, cultural and media studies. Terrors of Uncertainty brings together a provocative range of perspectives from across the disciplines, which combine to raise important questions about the relationship between fiction and society, and the way in which we use fiction to resolve or evade our fears of uncertainty.

On the Western Front in World War I, a generation faced a horrifying reality that ushered in the modern age. But in the previous century, many of the fears we still face were first given form in the pages of popular fiction. Books such as Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula became modern myths because they gave people a safe way to confront modern fears also taking shape at that time. By looking at such varied subjects as Victorian architecture, urban crime, women's rights, and the impact of new technology, we can come to understand the peculiar relationship between horror in literature and the horror of daily life. World War I made it clear that the images of horror in popular fiction had not been an escape from the world around us, but a way of seeing deeper into it, as well as revealing the shape of things to come.

Horror films have exploded in popularity since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, many of them breaking box-office records and generating broad public discourse. These films have attracted A-list talent and earned award nods, while at the same time becoming darker, more disturbing, and increasingly apocalyptic. Why has horror suddenly become more popular, and what does this say about us? What do specific horror films and trends convey about American society in the wake of events so horrific that many pundits initially predicted the death of the genre? How could American audiences, after tasting real horror, want to consume images of violence on screen? Horror after 9/11 represents the first major exploration of the horror genre through the lens of 9/11 and the subsequent transformation of American and global society. Films discussed include the Twilight saga; the Saw series; Hostel; Cloverfield; 28 Days Later; remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, and The Hills Have Eyes; and many more. The contributors analyze recent trends in the horror genre, including the rise of 'torture porn,' the big-budget remakes of classic horror films, the reinvention of traditional monsters such as vampires and zombies, and a new awareness of visual technologies as sites of horror in themselves. The essays examine the allegorical role that the horror film has held in the last ten years, and the ways that it has been translating and reinterpreting the discourses and images of terror into its own cinematic language.