The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York
Black Horror Film and the Role of Mood in Race Perception
Abstract
dc:description.abstract<p>Contemporary discussions of black or antiracist art are often haunted by an air of pessimism. This pessimism rests on the intuition that art cannot change the political realities of antiblackness and/or our relationships with blackness. In this dissertation, I resist this hegemonic view by arguing that black horror films generate a particular, politically-valuable aesthetic experience. Specifically, they allow us to experience blackness and black people as unintelligible. This, I argue, runs counter to everyday experience of blackness; when blackness appears unintelligible, we lose the sense of satisfied comprehension that characterizes our everyday experiences of it. I argue that these films accomplish this through the cultivation of what I call horror mood: an experience in which the world itself appears unintelligible. So long as we are not in that mood, the experience of radical unintelligibility I am after is impossible.</p>
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Level thesis:degree_level
- Doctoral
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Philosophy
- Grantor
- The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York
- Year dc:date.available
- 2024
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Whittaker, Nicholas P
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Noël Carroll
- Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
-
- Sandra Shapshay
- Paul Taylor
- Jonathan Gilmore
Subjects
dc:subject × 7Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6024
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-7145