Horror in Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Movies
CLST 275
Fall 2025
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01
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A question from the notorious slasher-killer of the Scream franchise, Ghostface, will elicit a different response from whoever picks up the phone: "what's your favorite scary movie?" We might just as well ask: why do you, why do any of us, actively seek out the discomfort of fear as entertainment in the first place? "Horror" as a genre is not the invention of 20th-century cinema. Ancient Greek tragedy, for example, employs horror to provoke catharsis in its audience, but it also applies the horrifying as allegory for contemporary sociopolitical problems; likewise, ancient Roman texts are filled with horror across different genres. The same themes that make horror effective in ancient Greece and Rome persist in modern horror films. This course will look at horror in ancient Greek and Roman texts as compared to modern horror cinema. How do the family dynamics in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Ari Aster's Hereditary reflect the intergenerational trauma in tragedies like Euripides' Heracles, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, or Seneca's Thyestes? What is the significance and allure behind "body horror" pervading so many horror films and ancient Greek and Roman texts? Why does so much horror surround a fear of the "other"? Different motifs and forms of horror manifest in ancient texts and modern films to communicate complex truths about their respective societies, and they also reflect broader existential questions about human existence. Applying theory from scholars such as Bergson, Deleuze, and Guattari, as well as secondary scholarship examining Greek and Roman examples of horror, this course will examine the effect that horror has on its audience, why we can't look away, and what our fear can tell us about society and our ourselves. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CLST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
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Examinations and Assignments:
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Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills a Literature and Performance requirement for the Classical Studies major |
| Instructor(s): Burmeister,Torie Times: ..T.R.. 10:20AM-11:40AM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 25 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 21 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 5 | JR non-major: 5 | SO: 5 | FR: 4 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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