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Ghosts and graveyards; witches and werewolves; crumbling castles, cobwebbed crypts, and bloody chambers--"Things That Go Bump in the Night." We are all familiar with the iconography of Gothic fiction and with the
thrills
and chills produced by its storylines. But how familiar are we with the reasons why we seek Gothic satisfactions, and why we discover them so predictably? How well do we understand the psychological, social, and
political
motives that drive Gothic image and narrative? To develop this understanding, we return to a primary source, the emergence of the Gothic genre in European culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We focus
primarily,
but not exclusively, on English society, where the Gothic emerged as a "far side" version of Romanticism and became a means of navigating social, economic, and political revolution. We then investigate the translation
of
the Gothic to American culture, beginning in the mid 19th century under the shadows of Puritanism and witch trials, gender rebellions, and racial divisions of the Civil War.
Among the questions we ask: How valid
is
the proposed distinction between "terror gothic" and "horror gothic"? Does this generic distinction, if valid at all, correspond to the distinction between feminine and masculine genders? Does Gothic fantasy support or
censor
forbidden sexualities and crossed genders? How do Gothic spaces and architectures represent the social, political, and economic concerns of an era? Most fundamentally, if Gothic fictions are fantasies of transgression,
are they progressive or regressive fantasies and how can we tell?
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459