A special post from Horror issue co-editors Caetlin Benson-Allott and Eugenie Brinkema: Image from Aaron T. Pratt's "Horror and Exploitation on VHS." VHS distributors experimented with the format of their boxes, issuing releases in a variety of sizes and shapes. © Photograph: Aaron T Pratt This special issue was born of a critical desire—to analyze horror where and how it occurs—that runs counter to the modus operandi of horror studies for the past twenty-five years. As corrective to the generic trend in the study of horror, “The Design and Componentry of Horror” asks that we broaden our considerations of what texts may be taken as horrific, horrifying, or horrible. Specifically, it seeks to elevate the importance of notions of composition, structure, form, aesthetics, intertextuality, duration, intermediality and materiality for the study of horror. All the essays focus on horror as an affect in dialogue with, even determined by, form and style. Collectively, they propose ways to set aside the taxonomizing impulse of genre theory in favor of attending to affect and composition and generate new insights into how art makes us feel. Our contention is that studying horror as affect and aesthetic opens new avenues for thought by insisting that texts’ composition, structure, and form are not incidental to their affective charge but are indeed responsible for it. Thanks for reading. -CBA + EB
Check out abstracts here. -JVC "This themed issue poses questions concerning financial cuts and their impact on contemporary society and the arts. It presents a collection of perspectives, in particular from Greece, in order to examine artistic and aesthetic practices. It explores how society is being transformed into a post-democracy and how citizens are becoming post-citizens. These transformations will have implications in the redefinition of both post-democracy and post-citizenship as two oppositional forces, which may no longer be reconcilable and could lead to insurrectional and repressive politics. The role that art plays and will play in shaping these discourses by presenting alternative imaginaries to the narratives of the body politic will have to be evaluated in a context of aesthetic concurrence and conspiracy of art. But if the artists are transformed into post-citizens – it may be safe to assume that as post-artists their contributions will be more free – or totally freed – from the restraints and bonds of national and supranational institutions, leading de facto to the production of counter narratives and imaginaries that will be perceived by the post-democracies’ body politic as insurrectional art." - Lanfranco Aceti, Introduction to the Special Issue
Read more from our special issue here, and enjoy written and artistic contributions from nearly two dozen artists, scholars and critics: Lanfranco Aceti Bill Balaskas Stefanos Tsivopoulos Syrago Tsiara Kostis Velonis JD Connor Marina Gioti Sarah Beck Nikos Navridis Joanna Boehnert Poka-Yio Elizabeth A Kessler Maria Tsantsanoglou Vaughn Pinxit Yorgos Zois Oliver Ressler and Bruce Barber Katerina Koskina Derrick Chong Artemis Potamianou Andrea Baldini Maria Tsagkari Charlotte Lucy Kent The Editorial Group is please to announce the launch of JVC Virtual Issues, in collaboration with our publisher SAGE. Virtual Issues collect a selection of previously published articles, organized around a theme, and make them available for free. No paywall, no institutional access necessary. The best of JVC, for everyone.
Current Virtual Issues include:
For the contents of each Virtual Issue and links to the content, see our Virtual Issues page. |
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