EN930 Gothic
Module NOT on offer 2024-25.
Gothic Environments
Through a wide-range of primary fictions from late-eighteenth-century to the present, and engagement with secondary critical reading, we will traverse a variety of spaces and places: dangerous and weird landscapes and their soundscapes; journey through unsettling physical and psychical interiors; textual spaces; will encounter uncanny and terrifying animals real and imagined, and will experience hostile flora and fauna, in order to consider the relationship between the mode and genre of Gothic/Horror and the topographies that enable or resist it.
We will consider the different subgenres and modes of Gothic (or "Gothics") from eighteenth-century Gothic, to Victorian Gothic, Modernist Gothic, Postmodern Gothic, Female Gothic, Postcolonial Gothic, Queer Gothic, Urban Gothic and others to think about how genre and form has been used to test boundaries of identity, ideology, political regimes, cultural and personal milieus, but how simultaneously many Gothic works (often seen as transgressive), affirm the status quo by, for instance, instilling alternative repressive boundaries (physical and conceptual) to the ones being challenged.
Assessment:
Formative assessments in the form of independent and group work.
1 X 6,000 word summative essay (students outside of the MAEL will have deadlines determined by their own department).
See the schedule below for the weekly reading guidance.
Primary Book List: Books that you need to acquire for the course, either by the library, or through purchase are below.
Secondary Criticism The selected, recommended bibliography for each week can be found by typing in the module code on the library's reading list site
Overview:
Preparation - I strongly recommend acquainting yourself with more general introductions to various ideas about what "the Gothic" is (not just C19th, but as a genre, and theoretical mode), by looking at reading companions such as The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, edited by Jerrold E. Hogle or Gothic: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, edited by Fred Botting and Dale Townshend. You may wish to read OUP's The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick Groom to refer to throughout the course.
There will be required secondary reading each week. This will be updated before the start of term.
--
SYLLABUS OUTLINE
SAMPLE SYLLABUS OUTLINE
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS ONLY A SAMPLE - I WILL NOTE HERE WHEN WHAT TO BUY/BORROW IS CONFIRMED
See the TalisAspire Reading list for the course for links to books in library
Week 1. Gothic / Environments
REQUIRED READING
[read this critical work in this order]
Fred Botting. “Introduction: Negative Aesthetics” in Gothic 2nd edn, Routledge, 2014.
Carol Senf. “The Evolution of Gothic Spaces: Ruins, Forests, Urban Jungles” in Dracula, edited by MM. Crișan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Pages 1-11 of Sladja Blazan. “Haunting and Nature: An Introduction” Haunted Nature. Palgrave Gothic, edited by Sladja Blazan. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
Manuel Aguirre. "Geometries of Terror: Numinous Spaces in Gothic, Horror and Science Fiction." Gothic Studies 10.2 (2008): 1-17.
Week 2. Gothic Foundations
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
[To buy or borrow] Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) – at least 3 copies in library and various e-editions.
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Extracts from Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulLink opens in a new window (1757)
- Find examples in Radcliffe's novel that correspond with last week's and this week's critical reading. Locate specific passages of different kinds of environments / spaces and think about their significance ready to discuss in class.
Week 3. Gothic Gardens
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Week 4. The Haunted House
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
[Possibly to buy or definitely to borrow] Pam Smy, Thornhill (2017) – this one is the most expensive so only buy if you are happy to own it – there is one copy in the library and I also have two copies which I can set up on a rota for you to sign-up borrow at University (in the area outside my office) over say a two hour slot, you can take pictures and make notes of course and there will be a couple of copies in the classroom for us to share.
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Roderick McGillis, "The Night Side of Nature: Gothic Spaces, Fearful TimesLink opens in a new window" in The Gothic in Children's Literature, edited by Karen Coats and Anna Jackson. Routledge, 2013. 235-250.
Margaret R. Higonnet, “The Playground and the Peritext.Link opens in a new window” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 15, no.2, 1990, pp.47-49.
Week 5: Contagious Spaces
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
John Edgar Wideman “FeverLink opens in a new window” (1989) [provided]
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb, "Meta-Dracula: Contagion and the Colonial GothicLink opens in a new window", Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 27, Issue 2, April 2022, pp. 292–301.
Robert Mighall, “Gothic Cities” in The Routledge Companion to Gothic (1st ed.), edited by Catherine Spooner & Emma McEvoy Routledge, 2007, pp.54-63.
Week 6. Possessed Lands
"The Battersea Poltergeist"
Week 7. Southern Rural Gothic
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
[To buy or borrow] Truman Capote, In Cold BloodLink opens in a new window (1966)
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Charles L. Crow, “Southern American Gothic.” The Cambridge Companion to American GothicLink opens in a new window, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 141–155. Cambridge Companions to Literature.
Week 8: Haunted Shores
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
These short pieces:
Mrs [Mary] Robinson. "The Haunted BeachLink opens in a new window." (1800);
M.R. James, “Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My LadLink opens in a new window” (1904);
[To buy or borrow] Andrew Hurley, The Loney (2015)
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Jimmy Packham, "The Gothic Coast: Boundaries, Belonging, and coastal community in contemporary British fictionLink opens in a new window." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 60.2 (2019): 205-221.
Week 9. Polar Gothic
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
Samuel T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient MarinerLink opens in a new window (1797); [provided]
[To buy or borrow] Michelle Paver, Dark Matter (2010)
REQUIRED SECONDARY READING
Katherine Bowers, "Haunted Ice, Fearful Sounds, and the Arctic Sublime: Exploring Nineteenth-Century Polar Gothic SpaceLink opens in a new window." Gothic Studies 19.2 (2017): 71-84.
Week 10: Gothic Space
REQUIRED PRIMARY READING
[To buy or borrow] Stanisław Lem, Solaris (1970) [5 copies in library]
Secondary = extracts from critical works will be provided by pre-set groups.
Learning Objectives and Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate a detailed and advanced knowledge about the historical contexts that gave rise to this particular literary and artistic genre;
2. Demonstrate a critical understanding of some of the key themes, topics, and debates that emerge in different kinds of gothic narratives produced in the long nineteenth century and their evolution.
3. Engage in significant critical debates surrounding such issues as gender, political rights, the nature of the human, the relationship between mind and body, questions of scientific and ethical progress;
4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse the literary, cultural, and artistic narratives of an earlier era to relate aesthetic concerns and modes of expression to its historical context;
5. Demonstrate an advanced ability to understand and analyse relevant theoretical ideas, and to apply these ideas to literary and visual texts.
Skills acquired
• Students will participate and sometimes lead seminar work and presentations, demonstrate advanced communication skills, and an ability to work both individually and in groups;
• Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose;
• Through research for seminars, essays, and presentations demonstrate advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis.