On Fear, Horror, and Terror: Giving Utterance to the Unutterable

Book excerpt: This volume brings together essays that examine a vast gamut of different contemporary cultural manifestations of fear, anxiety, horror, and terror. Topics range from the feminine sublime in American novels to the monstrous double in horror fiction, (in)security at music festivals, the uncanny in graphic novels, epic heroes' Being-towards-death and authenticity, atrocity and history in Central European art, the theme of old age in absurdist literature, and iterations of the "home invasion" subgenre in post-9/11 popular culture. This diversity of insights and methodologies ensures a kaleidoscopic look at a cluster of phenomena and experiences that often manage to both be immediately and universally recognizable and defy straightforward categorization or even description. Contributors are Emily-Rose Carr, Ghada Saad Hassan, Woodrow Hood, María Ibáñez-Rodríguez, Nicole M. Jowsey, Marta Moore, Pedro Querido and Ana Romão.