What is the Uncanny
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4160341 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Windsor (0000-0001-8666-426X, University of Kent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 51-65 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayy028 |
| OpenAlex | W2889303755 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
I propose a definition of the uncanny: an anxious uncertainty about what is real caused by an apparent impossibility. First, I outline the relevance of the uncanny to art and aesthetics. Second, I disambiguate theoretical uses of ‘uncanny’ and establish the sense of the term that I am interested in—namely, an emotional state (a kind of anxiety) directed towards particular objects in the world which are characteristically eerie, creepy, and weird. Third, I look at Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ as a means of drawing out the conditions that I claim are essential to uncanny experiences, and then elaborate the terms of my proposed definition. Finally, I show how the definition accounts for two paradigmatic kinds of uncanny phenomena: cases of ‘uncanny resemblances’, which include twins, doppelgangers, and very lifelike representations of the human body; and unlikely coincidences of events
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Impossibility · Perception · Relevance (law · Uncanny · Uncanny valley · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology
From real to sur-real
Mind as quasi-miracle
Overactive (and Underactive) Imagination
Specters of Mob in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises
Uncanny trans-corporeality and plastic waste in the visual arts
An Analytic of Eeriness
Bioinspired technology and the uncanny Anthropocene
Heritage child stars on Disney
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |