Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “All-American Horror,” on homegrown literature and film that used monsters and other frights for social commentary, with Joshua Barton, lecturer in English at Virginia Commonwealth University, scholar of horror, and creator of a course titled “Monsters in America.”
Horror fiction—whether in literature, film, or video games—is often dismissed as purely escapist entertainment, without deeper meaning. While that may be true for some works, much of horror digs far beneath the surface, exposing societal anxieties and shedding light upon the experiences of marginalized communities. The monsters that it creates serve as reflections of the world around us, amplifying the unease, biases, and conflicts that shape our culture.
Learn more about horror as American critique with Joshua Barton, whose research focuses on fictional monsters from the Greek myths to today’s horror films and on the use of horror to examine human psychology and sociological issues.
In a talk covering classic literature and iconic films, he’ll examine how American fears evolved over time and how horror has reflected our nation’s struggle with issues related to class, religion, gender, and race.
We’ll look into works of horror that blur the line between fantasy and reality, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Among the films we’ll touch upon are Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Bernard Rose's Candyman, Mary Harron's American Psycho, and Zach Cregger's Barbarian. Rachel Harrison's novel The Return will also be examined.
You’ll come to see the truth in the historian W. Scott Poole’s observations that “monster tales intertwine with America’s troubled history” and that “monsters continue to haunt contemporary American ideology.” You might even become more attuned to distinctly American fears. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A 10-cent Sleepy Hollow postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 1974.