Vanessa Hardinger

Vanessa received her BA in English Literature with a minor in Communication Studies from the
University of Nevada, Reno and her MA in English Studies from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research interests include Romantic and Victorian literature, gothic and
horror studies, gender studies, popular media and culture, narratology and genre theory.

Project: Heartache Horror: Home, Family, and Generational Trauma in the Sentimental Horror of
Mike Flanagan’s Television Series

This project focuses on modern popular horror which explores personal and cultural generational trauma through the use of the home and family as a site of both sentimentality and horror. Drawing on the tropes and traditions of Gothic literature, much of contemporary horror explores the haunting nature of the past through its lingering griefs, traumas, and injustices, which, failing to have been properly confronted and rectified, continue to antagonize the present. This project will explore the combination of horror and sentimentality and how it creates a space for richly textured stories which explore the emotional depths of both the personal and cultural traumas of a given society. A cultural reading of popular modern horror, such as thetelevision works of director Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher) aims to question how sentimentality operates as a mode of storytelling within horror, as well as contribute to the discussion of how sentimentality may exist as horror as well.