“El cine de horror existe aquí” / “Horror cinema exists here”: Mapping Affect and its Limits in Transnational Horror

Horror cinema is arguably the most transnational of film genres with Spain and select Latin American countries presently operating as both nodes of production and consumption. If horror and its various subgenres are consumed and produced across multiple national markets, one may presume that the emotions and affects of horror accompany this circuit. In this talk, Prof. Jonathan Risner from Indiana University Bloomington will mine the ways in which affect and emotion manifests themselves in Spanish-language horror films from Spain, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico and how horror occasionally can make us feel and, thus, think differently about a range of topics including socioeconomic and cultural issues, filmic pleasure, and cinema itself. Throughout the lecture, he will weave in pedagogical and interactive moments in which we will attempt to locate the existence of horror genre communities while also recognizing the limits of such tools of analysis.

Prof. Risner’s research focuses on Latin American genre cinema while taking into account local, national, and transnational dynamics that impinge upon a films, or group of films, production, distribution, and/or content. He has written a book and a number of articles on contemporary Argentine horror cinema that consider specific horror subgenres (slashers, zombie films, gothic horror) and how those horror subgenres can appeal to national and global audiences while projecting or eliding local socio-political crises, such as legacies of the last dictatorship and sociocultural consequences wrought by neoliberal economic policies.