Japanese and American Horror

Horror fiction is an important part of the popular culture in many modern societies. This book compares and contrasts horror narratives from two distinct cultures—American and Japanese—with a focus on the characteristic mechanisms that make them successful, and on their culturally-specific aspects.
Including a number of narratives belonging to film, literature, comics and video games, this book provides a comprehensive perspective of the genre. It sheds light on the differences and similarities in the depiction of fear and horror in America and Japan, while emphasizing narrative patterns in the context of their respective cultures.

Katarzyna Marak is a lecturer at Department of Cultural Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, where she teaches courses on American and Japanese horror and popular culture. She lives in Torun.

Katarzyna Marak
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 232
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9666-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1792-3
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. Ghosts 17
2. Monsters and Monstrosities 83
3. The Divine and the Unholy 158
Conclusion: Different Shades of the Universal 197
Notes 207
Bibliography 212
Index 221

“Katarzyna’s book is a notable and timely contribution to the field of horror studies…excellent addition to the shelves or tablets of any horror scholar”—Dead Reckonings.