According to Devendra Varma “the difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.” From ancient fables to 19th Century Gothic novels to the modern Horror genre, scary stories exorcise and obsess over our most deeply rooted political, social, and philosophical anxieties. Questions of gender, race, class, and sexuality are “abjected” through monsters, Gothic locations, and mysteries lurking in the shadows. But how do writers and artists harness “the strongest emotion of which the mind is capable”? In this course we will read and view examples from folklore to experimental horror to explore how to build tension in a narrative, when (and when not) to break it, and what to do with the bloody mess that’s leftover. Assignments will range from analytical and creative writing to other visual and auditory narrative mediums.

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