In this dissertation, it is my intention to show how Stephen King transcends genre, creates and maintains a viable Secondary Reality, and treats capably those literary techniques that critics expect of a serious writer. In addition, I will discuss the ways in which King has secured the loyalty of his Constant Reader. The primary means of my analysis will be through a close reading of the "expanded and uncut" version of The Stand, one of the classics in King's arsenal. I will begin with an overview of the general set-up in the novel---the start in Arnette, Texas, the actions of the military and media, and the 99.4% communicability of the flu itself. From there, I will delve into detailed character analyses of the main players in the story, before moving on to questions of the bigger picture---good vs evil, the question of choice, the Stand itself, the issue of government, and the promise of the future. I will conclude with a brief look at King's style and consider the overall reasons for his popular appeal. It is my hope that such a lengthy look at one of King's novels---instead of the brief chapters devoted to each of his novels in turn---will reveal not only the reasons why King is worthy of serious study, but will show that King's work does stand up to in-depth criticism, thereby answering one of the key questions of current King scholarship: is there enough in King to work with? Everybody agrees that King can crank out lengthy novels without much trouble; it is my intention to peak [sic] into the corners and down into the basement, if for no other reason than to find out if there really is a bogeyman hiding in there, or if it is merely an over-inflated rag doll of fandom. Either way, whether the horror be in the text or in the lack of substance in the text, I hope that my examination will lend new insight to the study of The Stand, and perhaps pave the way for other in-depth studies of other King novels.

This dissertation examines contemporary horror TV, dissecting the ways it works both to subvert and uphold contemporary social standards about race, gender, class, and ability. This work attends to the moments in horror TV where graphic displays of violence and monstrous characters open up possibilities for innovative and progressive representation of historically marginalized people, as well as those instances that foreclose such potential. Horror TV shows blur the definitions of monster and human, suggesting that humans can be monstrous and that monsters can have humanity. Horror TV is a platform through which we see the coming together of a traditional logic about what is and what is supposed to be with a radical suggestion that, perhaps, things could be another way. This dissertation closely examines two seasons of American Horror Story – Coven and Freakshow – along with Hannibal and Penny Dreadful, as symptomatic texts of a dynamic sociopolitical moment in the United States where progressive and conservative worldviews sometimes violently clash. This dissertation examines the role of performance in horror TV, literal and figurative theater spaces that frame action in ways that disrupt hetero-patriarchal epistemologies. Order and chaos, reason and emotion, the natural and the supernatural often “crash” together in violent ways on the stages of horror TV, sometimes inviting something alternative to emerge. These often-violent performances serve as microcosms for the larger set of narratives and images we see in horror TV. This dissertation examines the figure of the dandy, who emerges in all the horror TV shows included in this work. The dandy is a contradictory character, at once queering social conventions of white masculinity, while also recuperating a traditional and dominant social position through violence. The dandy’s violent behavior is a kind of consumption: the taking of bodies and lives to satisfy their boredom. The horror TV dandy may be villainous, but is also the embodiment of the contemporary, good, white citizen who puts consuming above all else. This dissertation also attends to the ways that horror TV is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the product of a white imagination. Horror TV masks the ways that it forwards a white worldview by portraying stories about racial difference and racism, while narratively confining the material implications of racism to the past. Some horror TV shows further center whiteness by suggesting that “horror” (the weird, the macabre, and the terrifying) comes from a distant and exotic place – specifically the Dark Continent of Africa or the Exotic East of Japan and India. Contemporary horror TV, however, presents some of the most innovative portrayals of (mostly white) women in lead roles through the figure of the antihero. The women antiheroes of horror TV act via their relationship to cultural and political oppression, often in the form of violence. As a result of the traumas they have experienced, the women of horror TV embody both heroic and villainous qualities. The antihero women speak to contemporary cultural attitudes about women’s changing position in the United States, and that we only see white leading antihero women on horror TV points to the fact that women of color are not afforded the same multifaceted representation.

This thesis examines the relationship between the practice of architectural design and the media through which it is represented. It makes a consistent critical appraisal of the philosophical presumptions under which architectural theory is made, in particular, the relationship between theories of expression and representation. The thesis presents seven distinct projects by the author which developmentally explore the degree to which architecture is able to represent the sublime - in particular through the concept of horror. In this instance horror emerges as a category of excess that supervenes the uses of the term in the genres of film and literary studies. Within the thesis horror describes an (impossible) objective for representation The thesis argues that the environment within which these philosophical questions of 'effect' may most resonantly be explored is, ultimately, digital media. The author draws on contemporary commentary by Jacques Derrida and Georges Bataille, in particular Derrida's discussion of the Parergon and contemporary discussion of l'informe, the informal to support these arguments. It is within the apparently 'real' environments of virtual reality that the presentation of the mise-en-scene of horror may be explored. Immersive digital environments, it is argued, provide an appropriate level of freedom and direction for the exploration of the spatial experience of the abyss. The thesis concludes by presenting observations on the antinomy of aspirations that any materialist theory of architectural practice must attend to when working within digital media.

The focus of this thesis is the examination of whiteness as a dominant identity and subject position. Whiteness has conventionally assumed a normative, monolithic status as the template of humanity. Recent theorising has attempted to specify and denaturalise whiteness. In order to participate in this fracturing of whiteness, I analyse examples in which it functions as a site of contested and ambiguous contradiction. To this end, I use contemporary monstrosity to examine whiteness. Monstrosity is a malleable and culturally specific category of difference that measures alterity, and by displaying discursive functions in an extreme form offers insight into the ways in which deviance and normativity operate. I argue that the conjunction of whiteness and monstrosity, through displaying whiteness in a negative register, depicts some of the discursive operations that enable whiteness to attain such hegemonic dominance. I deploy theories of marginalisation and subjectivation drawn from a variety of feminist, critical race, and philosophical perspectives in order to further an understanding of the discursive operations of hegemonic and normative subject positions. I offer a brief history and overview of both the history and prior conceptualisations of monstrosity and whiteness, and then focus on two particular examples of contemporary white monstrosity. I closely examine the representation of monstrosity in serial killer films. The figure of the serial killer is typically a white, heterosexual, middle class male whose monstrosity is implicitly reliant upon these elements. In my discussion of the recent phenomenon of fatal shootings at high schools in North America, I investigate the way the massacre at Columbine High School functions as the public face of the phenomenon and for the unique interest it generated in the mass media. I focus on a Time magazine cover that featured a photograph of the adolescent perpetrators under the heading The Monsters Next Door, which condensed and emblematised the tension that they generated. It is through the perpetrators uneasy occupation of dual subject positions???namely the unassuming all American boy and the contemporary face of evil???that their simultaneous representation as average and alien undermines the notion of whiteness as neutral and invisible.

The main assertion of this thesis is that both 19th century and contemporary Gothic literary texts are characterised by fugitivity, embodied by the fugitive ‘figure’ which through its ambiguity is re-deploying the distinction proposed by Ross Chambers – inescapably both narrative and textual. The fugitive figure is intimately related to desire and its textual mobilisation. This mobilisation simulates the paradoxical experience of the sublime in which the pursuer of the fugitive figure is left speechless before the feared and desired unnamable other. Anne Rice’s ‘The vampire chronicles’ are discussed, as are ‘Frankenstein’, ‘The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ and ‘Dracula’. Analysis of these texts constitutes a ‘genealogy’, conceived and executed in poststructuralist terms, consisting of a deconstructive analysis inflected by psychoanalytic inputs. The genealogy is applied to indicate the importance of the family structure and its potential for dissolution in Gothic texts, and recreates a search for origins, which is a recurring theme in Gothic writing. The fugitive figure, through its embodiment of insatiable desire, is beyond either narrative or tropaic apprehension. It is in continual metamorphosis and invites pursuit in its different guises. However, although it appears as the objectified pursued, it actually arises from within the pursuer, so any attempt to arrest the disruptive flow it signifies is, although unavoidable and necessary, a self-deceptive act doomed to failure. This failure is registered simultaneously at narrative and textual levels. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

The tragedy and aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are reflected in American apocalyptic horror films that have been produced since 2001. Because the attacks have occurred only within the past ten years, not much research has been conducted on the effects the attacks have had on the narrative and technological aspects of apocalyptic horror. A survey of American apocalyptic horror will include a brief synopsis of the films, commentary on dominant visual allusions to the 9/11 attacks, and discussion of how the attacks have thematically influenced the genre. The resulting study shows that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have shaped American apocalyptic horror cinema as shown through imagery, characters, and thematic focus of the genre.

This arts-based study discusses using the horror film and monsters as a means of exploring the personification of fear in contemporary society. The paper incorporates the viewing and dissection of horror films into an artistic process to explore fears in order to further artistic expression. It additionally shows how this process can be used in an art classroom within the context of contemporary art to empower students and facilitate art criticism discussions.

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att ta reda på vilka typer av djurögon applicerade på en mänsklig karaktär som kan uppfattas som mer eller mindre skrämmande. Arbetet grundar sig på teorier om fiendedesign i skräckspel samt ögonens anatomi. Sex konceptbilder skapades och användes till 15 semistrukturerade intervjuer. Fem frågor rörande de sex karaktärerna med olika djurögon gav svar på frågeställningen i arbetet. Resultatet från denna undersökning visar att färg och form har en viss betydelse för hur en betraktare upplever vad som är skrämmande för de utvalda ögonen.

Hur utformas spelkaraktärer för att förmedla skräck till betraktaren?  Spelkaraktärer inom survival-horrorgenren har flera konventioner baserade på skräckgenrens tidigare historia. Både kvinnliga och manliga karaktärer har tydligt fokus på sexualisering. Kropp och klädsel används för att markera avstånd från betraktarens kultur. Färger som betonar sexualitet, våld och ondska återkommer i karaktärernas utformning. Ljus och klädsel används även för att begränsa betraktarens information om karaktären. 2 karaktärer har producerats, en av vardera kön. Dessa används till en enkätundersökning för att testa relationen mellan vana av skräckgenren, hur skräckinjagande de uppfattas samt hur sexualiserade de anses. Resultaten av undersökningen är att det mest avgörande för att skapa skräckinjagande karaktärer var att de betraktas som fysiskt farliga och att karaktären inte är en del av betraktarens kultur. Relationen mellan skräck och kultur kan vidareutvecklas i framtida arbete inom krigs- och propagandaaffischer relevant. Skräckgenren och propaganda är något som tycks innehålla flera likheter.