This class will serve as a crash course on the history of this subgenre of horror writing, with a keen focus on the intersection of abjection and the body as used to express historically marginalized experiences based on gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, etc. While we'll look at film, and even mythology and fairy tales, to add dimension to this brief survey, the focus will be on the page, and we'll study literary examples to then experiment with writing our own stories. This class is for prose writers with an emphasis on fiction, but we will also explore body horror in creative nonfiction, and how to write extended metaphors to express our bodies, ourselves. There will be light reading assigned each week outside of class as well as films to view at home; participants will be given optional writing exercises each week to do on their own with time allotted in class to share.
Content warning: This class is for writers who don’t have any problems reading, writing, or viewing blood, guts, and gore (keep in mind, the grotesque in body horror is rarely the result of violence, but has more to do with transformation/infection/mutation).
