WGSS 377
Legacies of the Gothic Novel: Feminism and Horror in the Transatlantic World
Last Offered Fall 2015
Division II
Cross-listed ENGL 377
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

Much maligned as a popular or “low” genre at its inception in the late eighteenth century, the gothic form has persisted in its popularity as well as crossed into “higher” forms of modernism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism. In this course, we will read key texts in the gothic mode-Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights among others-and follow the ways in which they are revisited and rewritten by contemporary American and Caribbean writers, filmmakers, and artists. Particularly, we will examine how these texts subvert the realist leanings of Anglo-American narrative fiction and its assumptions of enlightenment rationalism by way of two main processes: narrative hypertrophy and feminist revisions of horror. The class will take up select contemporary criticism on the gothic and horror in literature, film, and art. This course will be of interest to students curious about feminism, postcolonialism, cultural criticism, horror, and comparative literature.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 25
Expected: 20
Class#: 1340
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: presentation, paper plus revision, final research project
Prerequisites: one literature or related course
Enrollment Preferences: any student with relevant coursework in ENGL, COMP, or WGSS
Distributions: Division II
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENGL 377 Division I WGSS 377 Division II
DPE Notes: The course will follow the path of radical thinking and generic experimentation by feminist writers of the nineteenth century as they transform in an anti colonial, anti racist, and anti misogynist contexts. We will study power, hegemony, and resistance along axes of gender, race, state form, and literary craft.
Attributes: ENGL Literary Histories B

Class Grid

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