Get the garlic, sprinkle the holy water, but please, leave the antiqueer racism out of my Gothic romance! Dr Maisha Wester (Sheffield/Indiana University) explains why Horror films are so interesting to study, what Brexit has to do with Zombies, why King Kong film posters reveal blatant racism, and why ghosts are not always gay but most definitely queer. Lusty lesbian vampires, Cat People (are those the same?), spiders, sharks, and Supernatural fan fiction: this episode has everything the tell-tale heart could want.
Texts, Films and Stories mentioned:
Dracula
King Kong
Le Fanu’s Carmilla
Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Family Guy
The Perfection
Roderick Ferguson’s The Nightmares of the Heteronormative
The Hottentot Venus
Raw
Cat People
I walked with a Zombie
Ganja & Hess
Arachnophobia
Jaws
Tendai Huchu’s The Library of the Dead
The Amityville Horror
Teju Cole’s Open City
Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild”
Supernatural
The Haunting of Bly Manor

Not scared enough? Follow Maisha (@maishawester) and me (@Lena_Mattheis) on Instagram and Twitter.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. In what ways are horror narratives and motifs political?
2. Why are queerness and race frequently negotiated in Gothic and horror stories?
3. Why are vampires often coded as queer? Which example for this does Maisha give? Do you have a favourite vampire?
4. What is the abject? What is Other(ing) in literary studies?
5. Open question: What do you think about the role of fear in the representation of queerness and race?