TY - JOUR
AU - Bicakci, Matthew
AB - Fear and Nature takes up the challenge of expanding the definition of ecohorror outlined in the 2014 ISLE special cluster by Stephen A. Rust and Carter Soles as both genre and mode. This collection aims to dispel common myths, parsing out maladaptive ecophobia from the heightened awareness of nature via the negative affect of ecofear. It also emphasizes a modular approach to its goal, promoting and engaging in cross-genre, cross-media, and cross-disciplinary analyses. It presents ecohorror as both sight and site: A site of renewed attention to the problematic binaries that horror unearths and unsettles, and a sight where we tape our eyes open, forcing ourselves to not look away from how we see things and our “less-than-positive ways” (14) of communing with the nonhuman world. Case studies span centuries and include close readings of novels, film, poetry, manga, and television, as well as the sociocultural circumstances that situate each. Despite labeling just the first section “Expanding Ecohorror,” all chapters reckon with and carve out space in the entangled circumstances that surround and pervade critical and popular mis/conceptions. This includes troubling and engaging with the subgenres of animal horror, body horror, and revenge-of-nature horror to group them under the large black wings of ecohorror. In addition, the collection builds on Stacy Alaimo’s transcorporeality and Rob Nixon’s slow violence, inviting the mode of ecohorror to morph and seep through critical cracks into related disciplines such as environmental studies, ecofeminism, gender studies, environmental racism, and critical media industry studies. Sections broadly attend to popular narrative elements and themes in horror that can and should be read ecocritically, with chapters between sections frequently expanding the arguments of others. These interwoven threads invite a nonlinear reading of the collection and multiple potential reorganizations of the content therein. Below are a few examples: Chapters by Ashley Kniss and Chelsea Davis critically examine the corpse as a site of ecohorror and its challenge of the human/nature divide. Brittany R. Robert’s and Kristen Angierski’s chapters evidence the potential terror in subjecting the nonhuman and address human cruelty toward animals. Dawn Keetley’s, Tidwell’s, and Keri Stevenson’s offerings approach cosmic horror from unique but entangled perspectives: The tentacular grip of the forest, the terror in recursive relationships to nature, and the existential fear that accompanies erosion. Tidwell and Soles urge us to be wary of the affect fatigue and existential cynicism that come with attending to horror. They also ask us to look ahead, anticipating additional anxiogenic encounters. Sharon Sharp’s chapter on the use of animals in television programming calls for a focus on the terrifying nature of media production. Soles’s powerful closing chapter forces the reader to consider how Western conceptions of race are constituted by and reinforced in popular horror. We may even look to consider how video games can be read ecohorrifically. This foundational text is an optimistic thrust of possible reimagination, one that does not “foreclose the future or discourage activism” (14). © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene. Edited by Christy Tidwell and Carter Soles
JO - ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
DO - 10.1093/isle/isab097
DA - 2021-12-13
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/fear-and-nature-ecohorror-studies-in-the-anthropocene-edited-by-uU0EEixruQ
SP - 224
EP - 225
VL - 29
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -