HUM-3321 Lecture 12: Belton- Sci-Fi and Horror
Document Summary
Sf is rational, speculative, scientific, based on science and reason, always looks forward to the future, monsters inspire sense of wonder not terror. Horror is a modal genre, intended to generate horror, terror, dread through the figure of the monster. Often looks back to the past, is suspenseful, shocking, irrational. Horror and sf explore boundaries between human and nonhuman worlds. Horror- difference between animal and human provide much of dramatic conflict, exposes traditional bourgeois values associated with normality that are rooted in concepts such as family, religion. Monsters emerge as more human than normal" characters. St- boundaries are more permeable between human and nonhuman, the two are more likely to become allies. Opposition between the two gives way to broader opposition between humanistic and non-humanistic values in which both work to defend human interest. Horror and sf have borderline figures who explore what it means to be human and straddling the line line between human and nonhuman.
