Behind the Scenes
Fall Semester Reading List: 21st Century Horror
For those of you who might be interested, click through for the reading list I’ve assigned the students taking my “Contemporary Literature: 21st Century Horror” course this fall.
Opening Materials
“The Definition of Horror” by Noel Carroll, a chapter from The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart
“Through a Mirror, Darkly: Art-Horror as a Medium for Moral Reflection” by Philip Tallon, an essay from the collection The Philosophy of Horror
Severed
The Orange Eats Creeps
+ “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” by Jefferey Jerome Cohen, an essay from the collection Monster Theory: Reading Culture
Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate
+ “Parasites and Perverts: An introduction to Gothic Monstrosity” by Judith Halberstam, a chapter from Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters
The Marbled Swarm
+ “The Human” by John Gray, a chapter from Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
Maximum Gaga
+ “Approaching Abjection” by Julia Kristeva, a chapter from Powers of Horror
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Anomaly)
+ “Black Infinity; Or, Oil Discovers Humans” by Eugene Thacker, an essay from the collection Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium
Anatomy Courses
+ “Formless” by Georges Bataille, from the essay collection Visions Of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939
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[Previous reading lists I’ve posted include: “Major Figures in American Literature: Gertrude Stein” and “Introduction to Experimental Literature” and “American Postmodernism” and “The European Avant-Garde 1900-1945” and “20th-21st Century Experimental Short Stories“]
I’d like to be in your class Orange Eats Creeps is being discussed. That was a strange experience.
Yeah that is an awesome book but I could see it not going over well. Didn’t see it as horror much and that’s the worst when students feel “betrayed” by a class or whatever.
This is one of my favorite ongoing ‘columns’ on htmlgiant. Are there any sites/blogs that collect these sorts of lists? I like to go back to these when trying to learn something new or finding something new to read.
sweet
This class sounds awesome. I just read The Orange Eats Creeps and The Marbled Swarm back-to-back. I enjoyed them both though I agree with frrrrrank that I didn’t see The Orange Eats Creeps as horror, but damn that flatso pancake “steamroller” scene in The Marbled Swarm was intense and disturbing, not many gory death scenes have gotten under my skin quite like that one did.
The difference between haunt and monster is interesting.
–that is, the distinction between “horror” that yields eventually or ultimately to ratiocination – the ghost is the leftover of an unjust death; the psychopath’s violence stems from a life story or a knowable mental illness; the violence makes sense from the point of view of revenge or karma – and “horror” that’s unintelligibly rooted – an agent of suffering that’s ‘motivelessly malignant’ – .
wish i could go back to skool
maximum gaga so yum i miss that book it probably is somewhere blowing minds with a fist full of flowers in the shape of a skull i hope i hope i hope i should buy it again but sometimes i like the idea of a book living inside me like a virus made of memory which is like, maybe almost nothing
Nice list, I’d take this class in a heartbeat! Maybe throw some Thomas Ligotti in there, perhaps Teatro Grottesco?
Your reading lists make me long for college.
[…] Christopher Higgs provides a reading list for those interested in 21st century horror. […]
This looks like an interesting class, but except for the theoretical texts it does seem to me like you’re interested in Horror. How do you define Horror? Not as a genre, it doesn’t look like.
The Orange Eats Creeps still has my bookmark somewhere in the middle. I look at it and think about finishing it when the time is right. Anyone here ever read this horror piece? http://amzn.to/KIsEBE It definitely falls into this category.
Cyclonopedia is so dope!
Mostly honestly I’m bleak with envy that a PhD candidate gets to teach these kinds of classes. As an MFA student I entered a competition and scored a single lit section of my own device, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction & Feminist Theory; but since then it’s been all comp/rhet. Gah. Maybe I should transfer to your program—
Chris! This should be on there too! http://www.amazon.com/In-Dust-This-Planet-Philosophy/dp/184694676X. If you haven’t you’ve gotta read this.
[…] wrapped up a two week session on The Orange Eats Creeps in my 21st Century Horror class, and one of my awesome students, DJ Dodd, created this badass mixtape: “For those who […]
[…] reading lists I've posted include: "21st Century Horror" and “Major Figures in American Literature: Gertrude Stein” and "Introduction to Experimental […]
[…] reading lists I've posted include: "21st Century Horror" and “Major Figures in American Literature: Gertrude Stein” and "Introduction to Experimental […]