The living dead are still walking – and their stage is now truly global. In recent years, global horror has evolved with such speed, complexity, and diversity that we must now find new ways to map it. George A. Romero’s revolutionary series of zombie films began with Night of the Living Dead in 1968, and in recent times has inspired films as varied as Australia’s Cargo (2017) and Japan’s One Cut of the Dead (2017). With the George A. Romero Collection as the founding acquisition of the University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies Archive, the stage has been set for a new mapping of global horror studies.
What do these networks of global exchange and influence tell us about the nature of the horror genre and how it is changing in today’s media landscape? With Australian and Japanese horror as entry points, this two-day conference will bring together academics, researchers and directors to explore folk horror, women in horror, local/global horror cultures and how horror is archived, produced, distributed, and consumed in the 21st century.
