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In the past decade, Western horror cinema has attracted box office and critical success while turning to more explicit engagement with social justice issues. As director Bomani J. Story has noted, the trend may be credited to the success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), which “opened the door” to “social commentary.” New horror may partake in the discourse on a variety of hot-button social issues, such as racial tensions (Nope, Us, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, The Blackening, Soft and Quiet), gender (Men, The Substance, Apartment 7a, Obsession), queer and trans issues (I Saw the TV Glow, Spiral, Huesera: The Bone Woman), among others. Many of these films would qualify as “elevated horror,” or what David Church identifies as “post” horror: “horror films that merge art-cinema style with decentered genre tropes, privileging lingering dread and visual restraint over audiovisual shocks and monstrous disgust.” As a whole, this trend emphasizes metaphorical meaning as a strategy for social commentary; we might call this the era of “woke” horror––a nevertheless fraught term with rapidly evolving connotations.
The editors seek essays exploring the role of sound and music in this understudied arena, as horror studies in general privileges narrative and symbolism. In so doing, this volume builds on the work of Donnelly, Kulezic-Wilson, Bullins, and others to explore sound design’s critical role in the burgeoning subgenre of woke horror. From YouTube to podcast horror to feature-length film, horror creators have demonstrated new possibilities through sound design. Other media rely on hauntology, in which musical elements or sounds are subjected to electronic distortion in order to create a sense of distance or haunting, or as Mark Fisher puts it, “hearing what is not here.” Finally, given the themes of personal and group identity in woke horror, the editors wish to explore the extent to which music functions to support or create that sense of identity.
Some themes for possible consideration, to be addressed in conjunction with music/sound:
- Body horror and its relation to gender, identity, and bodily autonomy
- Sounding the “Other”
- Grief and trauma
- Anti-woke horror
- Social-media critique
- Identity and systemic power/harm
- Victimhood and complicity
- Anti-capitalist messaging
- Class and exploitation
- A.I. and technology
- Liminal spaces and the uncanny
The editors seek 300-word abstracts for ca. 5,000-word chapters by September 1. Please include author name, affiliation, and a brief bio in the pdf. or word doc. Email to paul.allen.sommerfeld@gmail.com. Co-editors Laurie McManus (lmcmanus@su.edu) and Paul Sommerfeld (paul.allen.sommerfeld@gmail.com) will review and notify authors of accepted abstracts by September 30. Chapter drafts will be due in September 2027. The publisher will be Palgrave.
Paul Sommerfeld & Laurie McManus
