Syllabus Showcase: Thrills, Chills, and Some Spills: The Philosophy of Horror, Kenneth Brewer

About ten years ago, I started idly musing about how horror movies are able to frighten and disgust viewers when they know that what they are seeing isn’t “real.” At that time, I was not a particular fan of the genre; like many people, I had watched a lot of horror as an adolescent (which for me was the era of the slasher films such as Halloween), and had lost interest as an adult. Still, this question intrigued me, and it led me to design a HUMA 1301 course, “Thrills, Chills, and Some Spills: The Philosophy of Horror.” I have frequently taught this class and will be teaching a new version of it in the fall of 2022. HUMA 1301 is an option to fulfill the university requirement for a required course in the Humanities. The aim, generally, is to introduce students from across the university to the methods of humanistic disciplines.

Instructors are given broad leeway in choosing topics; the only requirement is that the course focuses on a theme/topic. Topics have ranged from Russian poetry to medieval romances to super-hero narratives, and in my course, horror films (with a few films from the action genre included). The class typically has around 75-100 students, from many different academic disciplines. It’s been perhaps my most enjoyable course to teach because it’s really satisfying to see students who are initially skeptical about the humanities in general and horror films in particular completely change their views by the end of the semester.

The course syllabus follows the structure of Noël Carroll’s classic 1990 The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart, but the course content is more interdisciplinary than Carroll’s approach, as we also look at research from the social, psychological, and neurological sciences (which has to be updated frequently) to examine the appeal of horror narratives and their effects on viewers. I also include a unit on the business of horror—how it’s marketed, in particular—as Business is a very popular major at UT Dallas.

The course is not on the history of horror as a genre, and follows Carroll’s analytical categories in approaching horror, from definitions of the genre to specific types of plots to theories about the appeal of scary stories. While I do cover the history of the genre a bit, and include classic films on the syllabus (such as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho), the analytical structure of the syllabus allows me to choose recent films that students tend to find more appealing.

Assignments are aimed at developing students’ critical thinking skills. In short writing assignments and exams, they are asked to apply concepts to specific films (for example, plot structures) and a significant amount of time is spent on close reading visual images. Essentially, we treat horror films as machines and try to take them apart to see how they work. Not surprisingly, this approach tends to be very appealing to students in majors such as engineering.

At the end of the semester, I use a Likert Scale to have students rate the films we have watched. This is always one of the most interesting and fun class meetings. While there are films that typically finish at the top or near the top of the rankings (The Silence of the Lambs, Get Out) and ones that typically finish near the bottom (The Blair Witch Project), students are always surprised at how their ratings differ from those of other students.

For me, approaching horror films philosophically has been essential to the course’s success. A more historical or cultural studies-oriented course on horror, while valuable in other contexts, would probably not work as well with students from so many different disciplines. The analytical and concept-driven nature of the class is precisely what has made it appealing to a wide variety of students representing very different academic backgrounds and goals. The last unit we cover is on “The Ethics of Horror,” and we discuss whether there is something morally dubious about watching and enjoying horror. Students who were on the fence about horror when the course began often vehemently defend its aesthetic (and even moral) value, and as an instructor, listening to their heated and eloquent debate is a highly rewarding way to end the course and has made it consistently one of my favorite classes to teach.

The Syllabus Showcase of the APA Blog is designed to share insights into the syllabi of philosophy educators. We include syllabi in their original, unedited format that showcase a wide variety of philosophy classes.  We would love for you to be a part of this project. Please contact Series Editor, Dr. Matt Deaton via MattDeaton.com or Editor of the Teaching Beat, Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall via sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org with potential submissions.

Kenneth L. Brewer

Kenneth L. Brewer is an Associate Professor of Instruction in Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. His primary research areas are aesthetics, taste, and the ethics of humor.