Ka Chung Lorraine Yeung

This paper investigates the emotional import of literary devices deployed in fiction. Reflecting on the often-favored approach in the analytic tradition that locates fictional characters, events, and narratives as sources of readers’ emotions, I attempt to broaden the scope of analysis by accounting for how literary devices trigger non-cognitive emotions. I argue that giving more expansive consideration to literary devices by which authors present content facilitates a better understanding of how fiction engages emotion. In doing so, I also explore the somatic dimension of reading fiction.

There is a growing interest in the role of non-cognitive affective responses in the philosophical literature on fiction and emotion. This flurry of scholarly interest is partly a reaction to cognitivist accounts of fiction and emotion that have been found to be inadequate. The inadequacy is particularly salient when this approach is employed to account for narrative horror. Cognitivist conceptions of the emotion engendered by narrative horror prove to be too restrictive. Cognitivist accounts also fail to give the formal devices and stylistic elements deployed in narrative horror a proper place within the spectator’s emotional engagement with it. In this paper I propose an alternative conception of the emotion “horror” that incorporates non-cognitive affective responses. I argue that this conception of “horror” is more fine-grained than the one characterized as a cognitivist approach. It captures more literary examples of the horror experience and it accommodates better the fear of the unknown. It also makes possible an aesthetics of horror in which formal devices and stylistic elements are given their proper place.

In this paper I develop an aesthetic of horror film music based on the film sound theorist Kevin Donnelly's "direct access thesis". This states that horror film scores have the power to provide "direct accesses" to the bodies of an audience; they "produce bodily sensations, excite (mainly negative) emotions and insert in the audience "frames of mind and attitudes...much like a direct injection". I first argue that two dominant theories in the field, namely, the culturalist theory of film music and Peter Kivy's cognitivist theory of music and emotion are inadequate. Then I will show that by aligning the direct access thesis with Jenefer Robinson's theory of music and emotion, Mark Johnson and Steve Larson's contention that musical meaning is primarily embodied, we will be able to reveal a deeper meaning of horror film scores than musical convention. I illustrate my proposal with the shark motif in Jaws and Dies Irae in The Shining.

This article advances an account of the nonhedonic values of horror fiction (including film). It is motivated by cases in which consuming horror fosters what theorists of education call "transformative learning" in adult students, which is a more shocking and disturbing experience than pleasurable. I first present two cases in which Polanski's Repulsion (1968) and Browning's Freaks (1932) disrupted and modified two students' experience of madness and abnormality respectively. Then I draw on Dewey's "aesthetic experience", Foucault's "experience book" and O'Leary's approach to the value of fiction to give the transformative experience in question a philosophical underpinning. In the second half of the paper, I offer a close reading of Bloch's Psycho (1959), with the aim of demonstrating that it has the potential to transform the everyday experience of madness in readers.

The Black Mirror episode “Arkangel” tells a disturbing story of over-parenting driven by technology. The single mother Marie’s adoption of the Arkangel system has invited overwhelmingly negative moral evaluation from philosophers. But what accounts for the moral failure of a loving and concerned parent? Is it all about her flawed character, or are there situational factors at work? In the article, I first foreground the slipperiness of technology implicated in Albert Borgmann’s notion of the “device paradigm” and Hans Jonas’s analysis of modern technology. Then I analyze the character of the Arkangel system in the light of the two philosophers’ works and show how the technology turns Marie into a failing parent. In the end, I offer tentative answers to the two questions; the answers shall also shed light on the problem of under-parenting driven by digital technology.

The Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” (Harris 2016) considers the possibility of technology’s triumph over human mortality. Unlike other episodes in the Black Mirror series, some critics find “San Junipero” uplifting. The executive producer Annabel Jones, however, remarks that although the ending of “San Junipero” is positively upbeat, “it’s not exactly a happy ever after. It’s more about being happy for now, and seeing how this goes” (2018: 190). Adopting Stephen Mulhall’s “film as philosophizing” thesis (2008), this chapter shows how the Black Mirror series contributes to philosophical debates over immortality and mind-uploading technology. In particular, “San Junipero” provides a thought experiment that enriches current philosophical reflection on the desirability of immortality. Inspired by other episodes in the series—namely, “White Christmas” (Tibbets 2014), “Black Museum” (McCarthy 2017), and “USS Callister” (Haynes 2017)—we use maximin decision-making to construct a dilemma against choosing immortality via mind-uploading technology. In doing so, we reveal the gloomy view of the technology implicit in the Black Mirror universe.

This article investigates the emotive potency of horror soundtracks. The account illuminates the potency of aural elements in horror cinema to engage spectator's body in the light of a philosophical framework of emotion, namely, the embodied appraisal theories of emotion. The significance of aural elements in horror cinema has been gaining recognition in film studies. Yet it still receives relatively scarce attention in the philosophical accounts of film music and cinematic horror, which tend to underappreciate the power of horror film sound and music in inducing emotions. My investigation aims both to address the lacuna, and facilitate dialogue between the two disciplines.