Fear is one of the oldest and most basic of human emotions. In this thesis, I will explore the topic of fear in relation to literature, both a staple of the horror genre as well as a device in literary works, as well as in my own writings. In addition, I will use Sigmund Freud's theory of the “uncanny” as a possible device to examine the complexities of fear and its effects both on the mind and body through the medium of literature, and, more specifically, where and how these notions are used within my own short stories. By exploring how and why certain fears are generated, we may be able to better examine our own reactions in this regard.

Realism, the uncanny, the figure, empathy, humanism, sculpture, feet, architecture, photography, oscillation, tin, installation, material, form, Herzog, projection, tactility, subject, haptics, sensibility, wax, portraits, space, embodied perception, rendering, duplication, thing, object, fragment, body, gaze, clay, god, man.

This study investigated the Uncanny Valley and whether using stylization and design may mitigate the negative effects of it. A survey was carried out where respondents had to rate a series of images, which where edited to be stylized in progressively higher degrees, in appeal and realism. All levels of stylization saw small gradual decreases in realism, whilst values of appeal remained static until the three last images where it diminished. Possibly there may be a way of designing characters to have a limited degree of realism whilst not evoking the eeriness associated with the Uncanny Valley.

Este trabalho consiste na produção de significações para o significante fronteira. A partir da análise de uma experiência pessoal vivida na fronteira entre o Líbano e Israel, buscamos resgatar a dimensão de contato da fronteira num contexto político e social atual no qual ela aparece confundida com a ideia de limite e resumida ao significado de fechamento. Este contexto é o dos deslocamentos humanos, acompanhado pelo fortalecimento de estratégias de fechamento das fronteiras aos sujeitos em deslocamento. É ele que instiga esta pesquisa e justifica a necessidade de circulação de novos entendimentos sobre a fronteira. A experiência que serve como material de análise funda-se no espanto da escuta de uma voz em hebraico no Líbano vinda de Israel. Essa voz, por uma interferência na rádio, cruzou a fronteira entre territórios vizinhos, mas em conflito. Dividimos a análise da experiência em duas esferas, a voz e o espaço, e elegemos trabalhar com dois afetos, o espanto e o inquietante. A voz é o elemento que fez passagem na fronteira e permitiu uma série de ressignificações que desembocaram na descoberta de uma nova organização espacial. O espanto refere-se àquilo que aparece fora do lugar esperado e produz interrupção do saber. Ele é o paradigma do inquietante, sentimento provocado pelo acesso à estranha familiaridade. Será pela interrupção do saber que o sujeito da experiência produzirá ressignificações que apontarão para a dimensão de contato da fronteira. Com essa demonstração, quiçá possamos contribuir para a circulação de novos entendimentos sobre a fronteira que não recaiam necessariamente no significado de fechamento e promovam uma forma de encontro com a alteridade / This work consists of the production of a signification for the signifier \"border\". From the analysis of a personal experience lived at the border between Lebanon and Israel, we seek to rescue the contact dimension of the borders in a current political and social context in which the borders appear confused with the idea of boundary and summarized to the meaning of closure. The context is the one of human displacement, accompanied by the strengthening of border closure strategies for displaced subjects. The current political and social scenario is what instigates this research and justifies the need of circulation of new understandings for the signifier \"border\". The experience that constitutes the material of analysis is based on the astonishment produced by the hearing of a voice in hebrew in Lebanon, which came from Israel. This voice, because of an interference on the radio, crossed the border between territories that are neighbors, but with political conflict among each other. We divide the analysis of the experience into two spheres, the voice and the space and we choose to work with two affections the astonishment and the uncanny. The voice is the element that crossed the border and allowed a series of resignifications that led to the discovery of a new spatial organization. The astonishment refers to what appears out of place and produces interruption of subjective knowledge. It is the paradigm of the uncanny, affections provoked by the access to the strange familiarity. It will be by the interruption of the knowledge that the subject of the experience will produce resignifications that will point to the border contact dimension. With this demonstration, perhaps we can contribute to the circulation of new understandings about the border that do not necessarily fall into the meaning of closure and promote a new form of encounter with alterity

This paper adopts a psychoanalytical approach to Toni Morrison’s Beloved by focusing on the significance of 124 Bluestone Road and the entity Beloved, as both a character and a source of displacement for the other characters as a result of the traumatic events that plagued them throughout the novel. In order to accomplish this, a close reading of passages dealing with this location’s haunting and the manifestation of Beloved as the flesh and blood spirit will be used to discuss the meaning behind the metaphor. Furthermore, certain psychological and literary terms will be utilized in the course of this analysis including: personification, repression, possession, metaphor, displacement and the uncanny in order to attempt to answer the question about how the author used these devices to narrate the trauma of the characters Sethe, Denver and Paul D, giving merit to their symbolic struggle with the trauma of their past and its negative impact on their identities.

Aprendizes e professores de línguas constituem-se por diferentes representações acerca da língua com a qual mantêm contato e do contexto que a compreende. Desse ponto de vista, analisamos a relação sujeito-língua com o objetivo de examinar como as representações mobilizadas pelos sujeitos produzem efeitos de sentido para os sujeitos e para a relação que eles estabelecem com a língua. Assim, de uma perspectiva discursiva (CORACINI, 2009; GRIGOLETTO, 2013; ORLANDI, 2012), considerando conceitos psicanalíticos (LACAN, 1964; VOLTOLINI, 2011), analisamos os dizeres de quinze entrevistados (aprendizes e professores), envolvidos com uma língua estrangeira: inglês, espanhol, francês, alemão, italiano, japonês, chinês e russo. Depreendemos, dos dizeres, a regularidade de três formações discursivas, a que nomeamos: língua guarda-roupa (cuja dinâmica é semelhante àquela conceitualizada por Bauman (2005) com a \"comunidade guardaroupa\"), língua atraente (sugerindo os efeitos de fascinação que a língua exerce ao sujeito) e língua fragmentada (apontando determinada imagem de segmentação da língua). Na análise, articulamos o conceito freudiano do \"estranho\" (FREUD, 1919), que se apresenta de modo profícuo para o exame da relação sujeito-língua, pois explica efeitos de \"estranhamento\", percebidos como desconforto e dificuldade, constitutivos do sujeito e que observamos nessa relação. A partir desse conceito, também examinamos os efeitos de familiaridade, enunciados como bem-estar e conforto na relação sujeito-língua e também relacionados às formações discursivas referidas. A análise da fluidez entre os efeitos de estranhamento e familiaridade destaca a constituição clivada do sujeito e a amplitude de efeitos de sua relação com a língua, contemplando representações constituídas nas condições de produção da hipermodernidade, concernentes ao mundo do mercado e de suas relações líquidas. / Language learners and teachers are constituted by different representations of the language with which they keep contact and also of the context that surrounds it. Bearing that in mind, we analyse the relation between subject and language, aiming at understanding how the representations the subjects mobilise produce different effects upon them and on the relation they establish with the language. Thus, from a discursive perspective (CORACINI, 2009; GRIGOLETTO, 2013; ORLANDI, 2012), considering psychoanalytical concepts (LACAN, 1964; VOLTOLINI, 2011), we examine the interviews made with fifteen learners and teachers, involved with one of the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. We can see, from their words, the regularity of three different discursive formations: the cloakroom language (whose dynamics is similar to the one developed by Bauman (2005) with the \"cloackroom community\"), the attractive language (suggesting effects of fascination the language exercises upon the subject), and the fragmented language (indicating certain representations of language segmentation). In our analysis, we articulate the Freudian concept of the \"uncanny\" (FREUD, 1919), for it explains sensations of discomfort and difficulty, which constitute the subject and can be observed in the relation between subject and language. We also examine its counterpart, the effects of familiarity, uttered as sensations of well-being and comfort in this relation and also related to the discursive formations forementioned. The analysis of the dynamics between the effects of uncanny and familiarity highlight the cleaved constitution of the subject and the range of effects of their relation with the language, contemplating representations constructed in accordance with the circumstances of hypermodernity, concerning the market itself and its liquid relations.

This dissertation is comprised of a recent series of compositions, titled the Nightmare series, and this thesis. The three compositions are Nightmare for JACK (a ballet) (2013), Second Nightmare, for KIKU/2.5 Nightmares for Jessie (2014), and Child of Chimera (2015). The thesis describes the aesthetic impulse behind this series of works, and identifies sociological and technological elements in the work. The primary topic of investigation is the “Uncanny Valley,” a term used primarily in robotics and gaming in reference to empathy towards androids and digital humanoid characters. This thesis investigates the uncanny valley in film, gaming, and psychology; examines the potential of the concept for use in experimental art; and describes the methods I have used to incite the emotion in my compositions.

In contemporary America the haunted house appears regularly as a figure in literature, film, and tourism. The increasing popularity of the haunted house is in direct correlation with the disintegration of the home as a refuge from the harsh elements of the world. The mass media populates society with dark images and subjects, portraying America as a dark place to live. Americans create fictional narratives of terror and violence as a means of coping with their own modern horrors. Their horrors are psychologically displaced within these narratives. The haunted house is therefore a manifestation of contemporary anxieties surrounding the dissolution of the home, a symbol of the infusion of terror and violence into domestic space.

<p>In the Korean artist Hyun-Jin Kwak's ongoing project Girls in Uniform she portrays events and moments that transgress the boundaries between the ordinary and the unknown. In her photographs there are frequently ambiguous and cinematic narratives. The pictures are carefully orchestrated and constructed, but they are not spectacular. Kwak's imagery is relatively unexplored. This thesis implements a comparative image analysis of eight of Hyun-Jin Kwak's works, in order to investigate and interpret her imagery. The analysis is based on three recurrent motifs: the uncanny, secrets - rituals and games as well as togetherness. The intention is to investigate the uncanny, which I identify in Kwak's artwork, and explore the mysterious fellowship and secretiveness that the girls have in their games and rituals. The togetherness that often exists between young girls in Kwak's photographs are put in to the context of the twinmyth.</p>

In the Korean artist Hyun-Jin Kwak's ongoing project Girls in Uniform she portrays events and moments that transgress the boundaries between the ordinary and the unknown. In her photographs there are frequently ambiguous and cinematic narratives. The pictures are carefully orchestrated and constructed, but they are not spectacular. Kwak's imagery is relatively unexplored. This thesis implements a comparative image analysis of eight of Hyun-Jin Kwak's works, in order to investigate and interpret her imagery. The analysis is based on three recurrent motifs: the uncanny, secrets - rituals and games as well as togetherness. The intention is to investigate the uncanny, which I identify in Kwak's artwork, and explore the mysterious fellowship and secretiveness that the girls have in their games and rituals. The togetherness that often exists between young girls in Kwak's photographs are put in to the context of the twinmyth.