Lexington Books
Pages: 102
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-7936-0280-0 • Hardback • June 2020 • $80.00 • (£62.00)
978-1-7936-0281-7 • eBook • June 2020 • $76.00 • (£58.00)
Courtney Patrick-Weber is assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at Bay Path University.
Foreword
Chapter 1: Defining Horror as a Rhetorical Genre
Chapter 2: Horror Films and the Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth
Chapter 3: The Void and the Medicalized Rhetoric of Stillbirth
Chapter 4: The Rhetoric of Home Birth, Containment, and Expertise in À l'intérieur (2007) and Inside (2016)
Chapter 5: Abortion and the Rhetoric of Choice in Black Christmas (1974) and Red Christmas (2016)
Bibliography and Filmography
About the Author
Courtney Patrick-Weber offers a welcome new perspective on horror films that deal with the myriad ways that pregnancy and birth are bound up within medicine, law, and politics. By focusing on the rhetorical framing of issues such as risk and choice, and their role in narratives of trauma and loss, Weber highlights how popular culture might interrogate our assumptions about bodies, power and agency.
— Erin Harrington, University of Canterbury
While horror films have long attended to the female body, Patrick-Weber’s analysis provides a useful exploration of the ways the pregnant female body is rendered through the rhetoric of medical technology. Patrick-Weber delves into the complex relationships between gender, science, and horror and produces a series of provocative case studies. This thoughtful volume is a useful addition to conversations about contemporary horror films.
— Kendall R. Phillips, Syracuse University