Existence occulted: Rhetorical pessimism and the world-without-us. Issue 1 (1st April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zager, Brian
• Is Part Of: Horror studies. Volume 8:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 9
• Page End: 24
• Publication Date: 2017-04-01
• Subjects: Horror in mass media -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Horror -- Periodicals; 700.4164
• DOI: 10.1386/host.8.1.9_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-3275

Abstract

In his trilogy of books focusing on the interconnections between horror and philosophy, Eugene Thacker continues an ongoing scholarly investigation into the curious relationship between the two aforementioned genres. By submitting that the paradoxical notion of a 'world-without-us' haunts both types of cultural projects, Thacker underscores the recurring issues of representation, occulted knowledge and the notion of horror-as-absence in such texts. Drawn to engage this perspective further, I advance that adopting a critical posture of rhetorical pessimism may be helpful to frame the issues of communication at play in both philosophy and horror. To operationalize these ideas, the film Vanishing on 7th Street (Anderson, 2010) is used as a case study.