Hello! My name is Rikke, and I am currently doing my MA in English at Aarhus University. This semester I am interning at the Recreational Fear Lab, which I am very excited about.

I was so fortunate to have Mathias Clasen during a literature course on my fourth semester of the English BA, which was really my first introduction to horror as something other than just jump scares and gore. He, of course, spent a lot of time talking about Stephen King, but when he wasn’t busy doing that, he explained the concept of horror, why people are drawn to it, and how it might even be beneficial. This was what really piqued my interest.

Initially, I didn’t even consider the Recreational Fear Lab as a possible internship. Mainly because I am a massive wuss. I do not like watching scary films, I avoid horror novels, and I think I might spontaneously combust if I had to play a spooky video game by myself.

However, this is precisely why I think the topic is so interesting. It is so far from what I find enjoyable, yet others love it. Why? Moreover, it might even be good for us – both psychologically and physically. I’m repeating myself but this really is what I think is just so cool about RFL and the research they’re doing. That’s why I hope to learn a lot more about it during my internship, so I will probably be spending a good amount of time reading old RFL papers on horror, why it’s cool, and what we might learn from studying it, as well as auditing Clasen’s BA course.

As autumn approaches and the annual Dystopia haunted house research draws nearer, I am expecting to get very scared very often, and to my own surprise I find myself looking forward to it. Perhaps, against my better judgment, I might even enjoy it. We’ll see. I hope so.