The Ethics of Horror

Michael J. Burke is associate professor of philosophy at St. Joseph's University, New York, and director of the honors program of its Brooklyn campus.

Through the unlikely pairing of Derridean and Levinasian ethics and popular horror films of the twenty-first century, Burke offers a fresh take on familiar horror tropes like the haunted house, the ghost story, and the zombie apocalypse, arguing that the more recent iterations of these themes highlight Levinas' stance that ethical responsibility to the other is "impossible to fulfill" and suggest that "restitution and reparation" are no longer possible. This work is both provocative and surprisingly poignant. Indeed, it "stirs reflection over why moral conscience should remain unsettled, especially in a time where the recognition of others' suffering . . . seems blinkered." --Kimberly Jackson, Florida Gulf Coast University Michael Burke offers a refreshing take on twenty-first century horror film, exploring the thesis that we have seen a shift from ghost stories that resolve or lay spirits to rest towards insistent representations of relentless, implacable, inexplicable monsters who refuse any containment or closure. Ranging from Japanese 'hungry ghosts' via haunted houses and spectral technologies to the zombie hordes and the 'it' of It Follows, Burke brings to bear an inventive 'ethics of alterity' derived from the work of philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. The Ethics of Horror is a compelling reading of a notable contemporary turn in horror film, full of valuable insights. --Prof. Roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck, University of London, Author of Gothic: An Illustrated History