The Uses of Phobia: Essays on Literature and Film

The essays brought together in this book understand phobia not as apathology, but as a versatile moral, political, and aestheticresource and one with a history. They demonstrate thatenquiry into strong feelings of aversion has enabled writers andfilm-makers to say and show things they could not otherwise havesaid or shown; and in this way to get profoundly and provocativelyto grips with the modern condition. * Makes extensive reference to original readings of a wide rangeof literary texts and films, from the 1850s to the present * Places a strong emphasis on the value phobia has held, inparticular, for women activists, writers, and film-makers * Discusses a range of writers and film-makers from Dickens,Thackeray, and George Eliot through Hardy, Joyce, Ford and Woolf;from Jean Renoir through Hitchcock and Truffaut to Margarethe vonTrotta and Pedro Almodovar * Intervention in key debates in cultural theory and culturalhistory