As American As Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie: The Constructioning Community in Contemporary American Horror Fiction

by Holland-Toll, Linda J.

• ISBN13: 9780879728519
• ISBN10: 0879728515
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr
• More Book Details
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Summary

This book does nothing less than redefine the very genre of horror fiction, calling into question the usual conventions, motifs, and elements. Unlike many critics of this genre, Linda Holland-Toll sees dis/affirmative horror fiction acting neither to soothe fears nor reduce them to the vicarious "thrills ‘n' chills" mode, but as intensifying the fears inherent in everyday life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Two Parts Gore and One Pinch Walking Dead: What Exactly Is Horror Fiction?	p. 1
How Does Is Work?: The Strategies of Exclusion as Structure	p. 14
Communities, Monsters, and "Us"	p. 27
Hunting the Laughing Tiger: Communal Containment Strategies	p. 34
He and We as Monsters: Breaking Down the Monster Demarcations	p. 54
The Hidden Monster: Problems in Construction and Identity	p. 76
The Construction of Social Communities	p. 103
Affirmative Community: The Golden Retriever Lives!	p. 110
Compromised Affirmations: Inhabiting the Corrupted Community	p. 122
The Discomfort Zone: We All Live on Maple Street	p. 145
Sorting Out Different Styles of Malignity	p. 175
Dystopias of the Human Heart: Apocalypse, Regeneration and Redemption	p. 181
Jailers of the Mind: Clapping the Mind-Forged Manacles on Ourselves and Others	p. 199
Dystopian Societies: Monstered Bodies, the Body Politic, and the Problems of Complicity	p. 226
Coda: Worth Studying or Suitable for Wrapping the Garbage?	p. 249
Notes	p. 253
Bibliography	p. 273
Index	p. 289
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