Horror Noire

From King Kong to Candyman , the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. This book offers a comprehensive chronological survey of Black horror from the 1890s to present day.

"Demons, ghosts, slavery, magic. These are just a few provocative subjects covered in Horror Noire . Means Coleman reveals that what scares some people the most is Black people imagining themselves as heroes, antiheroes, villains, and monsters. Attending to the ways Black people’s imagination is activated—that is the value and power of Horror Noire . "

John Jennings, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of California-Riverside, USA

Robin R. Means Coleman is Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer, and Ida B. Wells and Ferdinand Barnett Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. Her previous books include the first edition of this title, African Americans and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor , and the edited collection Say It Loud! African Americans, Media and Identity , along with the co-edited volume Fight the Power! The Spike Lee Reader and the co-authored Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life . Her documentary Horror Noire (2019) won the 2020 Rondo Hatton Award for Best Documentary and the 2019 FearNyc Trailblazer Award.