{"id":77959,"date":"2026-03-06T15:13:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/?p=77959"},"modified":"2026-05-04T18:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:53:31","slug":"bussw-professor-copeland-explains-how-the-horror-genre-is-a-lens-for-analyzing-power-and-injustice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/bussw-professor-copeland-explains-how-the-horror-genre-is-a-lens-for-analyzing-power-and-injustice\/","title":{"rendered":"BUSSW Professor Copeland Explains How the Horror Genre is a Lens for Analyzing Power and Injustice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Phillipe Copeland recently presented his research on horror as a framework for understanding oppression and resistance in a webinar hosted by the Natural Resources Defense Council titled \u201cSinners in a Time of Monsters.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The session brought together more than 100 participants from across the country.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:240,&quot;335559739&quot;:240}\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rather than treating horror as entertainment alone, Copeland argues it can function as a lens for analyzing power and injustice. He describes oppression as \u201cmonstrous\u201d \u2014 embedded in systems, institutions,\u00a0cultures,\u00a0mindsets\u00a0and actions\u00a0that reproduce harm. Framing it this way makes structural inequality visible and contestable within broader conversations about social change.<\/p>\n<p>He also outlines three roles that\u00a0emerge\u00a0in \u201ctimes of monsters:\u201d casualties, survivors, and warriors. Casualties experience physical harm\u00a0and\u00a0what James Baldwin described as \u201cthe death in the heart,\u201d a state of political and psychological depletion. Survivors\u00a0demonstrate\u00a0resilience but often remain defensive, while warriors actively confront and disrupt oppressive systems.<\/p>\n<p>Applying this framework to\u00a0Sinners, Copeland interprets its vampires as symbolic of the fear and racial violence that sustained Jim Crow, showing how fiction can illuminate history and sharpen our understanding of resistance.<\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/profile\/phillipe-copeland\/\" class=\"cta-button\">Learn more about Professor Copeland\u2019s work<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Phillipe Copeland&#8217;s work helps illustrate different responses to oppression and highlights the importance of actively confronting unjust systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25622,"featured_media":77962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8570,7427,7520,7511,4057],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77959"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81490,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959\/revisions\/81490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}