Margee Kerr

For as long as we've gathered by campfires to tell ghost stories, humans have always loved a good scare. From the splatter flicks of the 70s, to Japan's obsession with drowned girls, to creepy modern experiences like the overnight ghost hunt at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, the horror industry has thrived across time and cultures. Our obsession with getting scared is obvious to anyone who visits ScareHouse, a haunted house in Pittsburgh that is annually ranked among the scariest in the country, and has become a booming attraction with nearly 150 employees and lines wrapping around the block. It even has its own sociologist, who conducts surveys and observations to make its performances ever more terrifying. Her name is Margee Kerr. In this surprising, scary, entertaining book, Kerr puts her expertise to the test. Not merely content to observe others' fear, she confronts it in the form of things like skydiving, paranormal investigations, and a visit to Japan's infamous "suicide forest." In her willingness to explore the world's scariest attractions, Kerr shows why we seek out terror even when there is plenty to fear in everyday life. Whether she's dangling by a cable from a 116-story tower or experiencing New York City's "Extreme Haunt," BlackOut, in which participants are handcuffed, forced to crawl through dark tunnels, and given a gun and told to shoot someone, Kerr parses the elements of fear with humor and the precision of an expert. Along the way, she takes a personal journey that leads to valuable insights about what we fear--and what it says about who we are.

Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear

Scream

Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Pain seems like a fairly straightforward experience – you get hurt and it, well, hurts. But how would you describe it? By the number of broken bones or stitches? By the cause – the crowning baby, the sharp knife, the straying lover? What does a 7 on a pain scale of 1 to 10 really mean? Pain is complicated. But most of the time, the way we treat pain is superficial – we seek out states of perfect painlessness by avoiding it at all costs, or suppressing it, usually with drugs. This has left us hurting all the more. Through in-depth interviews, investigation into the history of pain and original research, Ouch! paints a new picture of pain as a complex and multi-layered phenomenon. Authors Margee Kerr and Linda McRobbie Rodriguez tell the stories of sufferers and survivors, courageous kids and their brave parents, athletes and artists, people who find healing and pleasure in pain, and scientists pushing the boundaries of pain research, to challenge the notion that all pain is bad and harmful. They reveal why who defines pain matters and how history, science, and culture shape how we experience pain. Ouch! dismantles prevailing assumptions about pain and that not all pain is bad, not all pain should be avoided, and, in the right context, pain can even feel good. To build a healthier relationship with pain, we must understand how it works, how it is expressed and how we communicate and think about it. Once we understand how pain is made, we can remake it.

Why Pain Hurts, and Why it Doesn't Have To

Ouch!

Pain seems like a fairly straightforward experience - you get hurt and it, well, hurts. But how would you describe it? Most of the time, the way we treat pain is superficial -- we seek out states of perfect painlessness by avoiding it at all costs, or suppressing it, usually with drugs. Ouch! paints a new picture of pain as a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, recommending steps to build a healthy relationship with pain and how we communicate about it.

Margee Kerr

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