AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Studies of J-horror have typically examined the cycle as national cinema. Such approaches overlook issues of transnational hybridity and neglect new regional formations. The J-horror cycle appeared in the mid-1990s, during a time of surging globalisation, when new transnational relationships were emerging and geographic networks were reorganising. The films of the J-horror cycle were predominantly made in Japan and South Korea and then remade in Hollywood. This thesis will recognise the influence of cross-cultural readings and the role of active translation in the construction of the cycle. It will also establish a framework of the cultural formations consuming this culture and how they have influenced the recognition of the cycle. J-horror films are a continuation of the Asian ghost story tradition which have adapted and incorporated international techniques. The thesis will examine how the films explore questions of nationality under modernity and the contemporary state of women as it relates to them. The risk in transnational cultural relations is the loss of culture or the loss of identity so, in order to see this body of films accurately, it is necessary to see all dimensions of local subjectivities.