Why does Gothic fiction continue to captivate us more than two centuries after its inception? Why do we take pleasure in literature that unsettles us, startles us, and horrifies us? This course examines how literature from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries employs gothic conventions to articulate fears and anxieties related to science, medicine, race, gender, and the environment. Through analysis of novels and short stories, we will investigate how Gothic literature explores the boundaries between human and non-human, the ethics of scientific experimentation, ecological crises, and the body as a site of medical and political control. Key themes include monstrosity, contagion, the uncanny intersections of technology and nature, degeneration, and other topics which remain eerily relevant today.

Origins and definitions of the gothic; conventions of gothic writing; exploration of gender, class, environmental and racial anxieties in gothic texts; gothic adaptations; the aesthetics of terror, horror, and the sublime; the gothic and medicine; the gothic and science; the gothic body.

This course aims to deepen your understanding of the relationship between literary tradition and changing historical contexts by examining developments in gothic writing in English. You will learn to recognize generic conventions of gothic writing and to participate in debates about their significance in relation to different social and cultural issues. The texts and topics discussed in the course are selected to help you extend your knowledge of narrative literature and different critical approaches to it. Class and assessment activities will help you improve your skills in close reading, argumentation, and expressing your ideas through speaking and writing.

We will meet for three hours every week. Our meetings will include lectures, open discussions, workshop activities, and oral presentations.