The Miskatonic Institute of Horror is now offering Spring Semester classes in various locations. Miskatonic is largely a volunteer-run institute that offers masterclasses in everything from Disney films to Brexit. It was named after one of the great schools of horror that H. P. Lovecraft created. You might recognize the school’s name from the films based on the author’s work, such as Re-Animator.
While the fictional Miskatonic University is located in Arkham, Massachusetts (which doesn’t exist), the Miskatonic Institute is offering courses potentially anywhere in the world. Besides the online courses people can attend virtually over Zoom, they can also take in-person classes in London, New York, and Los Angeles.
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All classes run from January to May 2023. For the in-person courses, you can sign up for three levels: concession, advance, and door, with the option of a seasonal pass. Individual prices vary by location. For the online, a live course will cost $12, while the rental you can purchase on Vimeo will cost $10. Below is a small sample of some courses people can sign up for. To get a semi-complete list, go to the institute’s website.
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School’s In Session
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In London, Jay Bamber will teach “Monsters in the Mouse House: Walt Disney Studios and the Horror Genre.” A withheld belief about Disney is that they remove the horror elements of their stories, hence the birth of the term Disneyfication. This course will serve as a rebuttal to that by showing the horror themes and aesthetics of Disney stories. Among other things, people will study children’s introduction to those elements, but the appropriateness of that happening.
In New York, Claire Donner will teach “The Invisible Woman; Or, The Many Faces of Doris Bither.” For those who don’t know, Doris Bither was the woman who inspired The Entity, which is about a woman being repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible entity. The course will look at the different ways that Bither has been portrayed by various sources, including the 1978 novel and 1982 film adaptation starring Barbara Hershey.
Online, Joe Lipsett will teach “The Queerness of Erotic Thrillers.” Several erotic thrillers focus on “traditional” couples who are heterosexual and who get plagued by villains who are often revealed to be bisexual or trans. The course will chart the early days of the genre, looking at films like Psycho, before going into the genre’s heyday of the ’80s and ’90s. Ultimately examining the way that sexual norms have and have failed to evolve before looking at two modern examples that suggest the genre may be changing.
The Los Angeles branch will announce its list of courses in January. While we might not know what they are, we know the classes will be at The Philosophical Research Society at 3910 Los Feliz Blvd. Miskatonic will hold the New York branch in the Film Noir Cinema at 122 Meserole Ave in Brooklyn. The London branch will take place at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury.
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