ENGL 2410

The Gothic Imagination

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

This course will ask us to turn a critical eye toward the weird bodies at the center of Gothic fiction: monsters, vampires, ghosts, and…the human self. We'll read gothic fiction from its beginnings to some recent YA incarnations, pairing many of our literary readings with examples of the gothic in contemporary American pop culture. The novels, films, and critical texts we read will provide us with a conceptual foundation for recognizing how and why specific cultural moments have adapted Gothic aesthetics. By attending to the strangely constituted bodies at the gothic's core, we will think critically about why the genre's dark fascination with gender and racial uncertainty, political power, and the limits of literary and scientific authority continue to haunt us into the twenty-first century.

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

View Enrollment Information