2020-21 Pomona College Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
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MS175 PO - “Horror” and The American Horror Film

When Offered: Spring 2021.
Instructor(s): K. Wynter
Credit: 1

Of all the film genres that partition and divide the products of American cinema, the horror genre has proven to be the most durable and the most easily adaptable to the shifting historical circumstances and socio-political anxieties to which it runs parallel. This course examines some of the key factors that have contributed to the horror genres capacity to maintain its continued viability in popular culture across a wide range of media including graphic novels, video art, and interactive gaming. Beginning with the modern period of the American horror film and then expanding beyond its physical and ideological borders, this course is designed to encourage students to challenge the ideas that have become associated with the term “horror,” and to consider whether some other term or terms may be better suited to describe the types of feelings horror films and its related forms of media actually inspire. We will consider some of the following questions: What is horror? Do horror genre films truly inspire horror or are we, as participants, moved by some other affect or response? Is it possible to locate cinematic representations of horror and its experience outside of the horror genre? Prerequisites: MS 049 PO , or MS 050 PO , or MS 051 PO  or equivalent. Letter grade only.
Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 1



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