Monsters: Using Big Scren Frights to Think Critically About the World Around Us

This course teaches you much more than the “do’s” and “do nots” of surviving a horror movie. Using a combination of films, literature, and discussion, you will study the horror genre, using monsters as a metaphor to explain the nuances of different cultures and societies. You will explore many STEM fields along with the humanities, learning practical skills of disaster preparedness alongside critical-thinking skills in the classroom. From shelter building to crisis management, you will learn to take care of yourself and others in times of disaster. Surviving is only half the battle. The films and literature of the horror oeuvre will serve as a jumping-off point as we use monsters as a metaphor for exploring current and historical cultures and societies. The students final project will be to use what we have learned about disaster preparedness and horror movies to create a Public Service Announcement that uses your critical-thinking skills to link our new knowledge of these ghouls with an actual problem we could all face.