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When: Wednesdays from 5:00 pm - 8:50pm
Where: CART 163
Who: Professor Jay McRoy
Who Has Office Hours: W 3:30pm - 4:45pm in CART 228
Who Can Be Reached: jaymcroy@hotmail.com & mcroy@uwp.edu
And Who Runs This Web Page: www.jaymcroy.com
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Course Description: This course explores several key works of contemporary European horror cinema that variably disrupt and reify multiple aesthetic, cultural, and political concerns. Things are going to get messy.
Required Texts: Online & via hand-outs distributed in class
Required Work and Assignments:
- Preparation and Attendance (10%). You must be here for every class meeting with the day's reading completed. Since weekly quizzes and take-home exams will test information presented in lectures, as well as in the texts on the syllabus, missing class will negatively impact your grades on these assignments.
- Three Take Home Exams (90%). The three take-home exams will be short essay-format responses to questions that I will distribute in class. For each exam, you must choose one of the questions and write a 3-5 page response. Late exams and plagiarized work will not be accepted. Carefully proofread for typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors. If you fail to do this, I will deduct 1/2 a grade.
WEEK-BY-WEEK BREAKDOWN:
September 3: Course Introduction
September 10: Dans ma peau (Marina de Van, 2002)
Read: Indiewire's "Body of Work: Marina de Van Discusses In My Skin" & Julia Kristeva's "Approaching Abjection" from Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
September 17: A L'interieur (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, 2007)
Read: Barbara Creed's "Horror and the Monstrous Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection" & Marc Olivier's "Border Horror: A Review of Alexandre Bastillo and Julien Maury's A L'interieur"
September 24: Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008)
Read: Donato Totaro's "Martyrs: Evoking France's Cinematic and Historical Past"
October 1: Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)
Read: Philippe Met's "Looking for Trouble: The Dialectics of Lack and Excess" & Kristi Mitsuda's "Too Close for Comfort"
October 8: Calvaire (Fabrice Du Welz, 2004)
Read: Carol Clover "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film" & Donato Totaro's "Thoughts on Feminism and Horror: Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws"
EXAM ONE DUE
October 15: Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
Read: Steven J. Schneider's "Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and the representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror" & Rochelle Wright's "Vampire in the Stockholm Suburbs: Let the Right One In"
October 22: Amer (Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2009)
Read: Linda Williams' "When the Woman Looks" & Primer: "Playing with Genre: An Introduction to the Italian giallo"
October 29: Anatomy (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2000)
Read: Steffen Hantke's "Germany's Secret History: Stefan Ruzowitzky's Anatomy"
November 5: [REC] (Juame Balaguero & Paco Plaza, 2007)
EXAM TWO DUE
November 19: Taxidermia (Gyorgy Palfi, 2006)
Read: Steven Shaviro's "Body Horror and Post-Socialist Cinema: György Pálfi’s Taxidermia" & Julian Hanich's "Toward a Poetics of Cinematic Disgust"
November 26: THANKSGIVING BREAK
December 3: A Serbian Film (Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010)
Read: TBA
DECEMBER 5 - EXAM 3 DUE IN MY OFFICE BY 5:00 pm
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