UToledo English professor Daniel Compora presented a lecture on “Suburban Nightmares” on Oct. 24 as part of the Carlson Conversations Lecture series. The lecture examined horror films which take place in suburban settings.
“Over the years, I’ve had a big interest in horror,” said Compora, who gave a presentation years ago on slasher films from the 70s-90s, which had a peculiar focus on teenagers in the suburbs. “It’s really more of an attack on suburban lifestyle, as much as it is teenagers.”
This lecture is different from Compora’s past lectures because it’s from material that he’s already published, and he’s whittling down the presentation instead of building it up. Compora has done several horror-themed lectures in the past; however, he differentiated this lecture with,
“This one is the only one that I’m already, I’m working from something that’s already been published. Now, I did one on clowns a couple years ago, and that was in the process of publication.”
When asked about next year’s theme Compora added, “I would like
to do something that combines the folk my interest in folklore at some point in horror, possibly local hauntings. That would be something I’d like to look into in the future.”
Compora is on Sabbatical this semester, but came to give the lecture anyway, saying “I just like seeing people... it’s always just nice to meet new people and can see that other people have my interest.” Compora also added, “there aren’t many horror people in my department, so I don’t have a lot of people to talk about horror with at the university”