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Sophie Dungan

Languages and Literature, University of Warwick

Thesis title:

Violent Things: Object Horror in American Fiction and Film 1970-2023

My PhD offers the first ecocritical analysis of object horror in post-1970s American horror fiction and film. It extends ecohorror’s range to include texts in which animate objects imperil human life, arguing that the ‘horrific trope’ of the killer object ‘promote[s] ecological awareness’ about the potentially dangerous agency of objects in our materially saturated and climate changing world and ‘blur[s] human/nonhuman distinctions more broadly’ (Rust and Soles 2014, 509-510). In engaging with works of object horror, this project sheds light on the growing impact of objects like plastic in our era of ecological crisis. Texts under discussion range from hugely influential authors like Stephen King (‘Battleground’ [1972]; ‘Trucks’ [1973]) to cult and pulp horror-comedy films such as Killdozer! (1974), Chopping Mall (1986), Maximum Overdrive (1986), and Child’s Play (2019).

Research Area

  • Languages and Literature

Publications

2022    Reading the Vegetarian Vampire, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–133.

2023    'Storying Species Extinction in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,' Superheroes, special issue of Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 12, no. 1, July 2023, pp. 37–48. doi: 10.1386/ajpc­_00067_1.

2021    'Anthropocene Disease and the Undead in V Wars,' Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, Dec. 2021, pp. 17–32.

2020    'Vegetarian Vampires of the Anthropocene: Re-reading the Animal-blood Diet in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight,' WRITING CLIMATE, special issue of Colloquy: Text, Theory, Critique, no. 39, Dec. 2020, pp. 42­–62. doi: 10.26180/13324943.

2023    'VV4 – Interview with the Vampire, Series 1,' Unseen Academicals: A Discworld and Terry Pratchett Podcast, open.spotify.com/show/53rp8zzKoHl5OBjxeFI6KL?si=ef633c34fef0498e.

2023    'VV3 – Vegetarian Vampires After Discworld,' Unseen Academicals: A Discworld and Terry Pratchett Podcast, open.spotify.com/show/53rp8zzKoHl5OBjxeFI6KL?si=ef633c34fef0498e.

2023    'VV2 – Vegetarian Vampires in Discworld,' Unseen Academicals: A Discworld and Terry Pratchett Podcast, open.spotify.com/show/53rp8zzKoHl5OBjxeFI6KL?si=ef633c34fef0498e.

2023    'VV1 – Vegetarian Vampires Before Discworld,' Unseen Academicals: A Discworld and Terry Pratchett Podcast, open.spotify.com/show/53rp8zzKoHl5OBjxeFI6KL?si=ef633c34fef0498e.