The Twilight Zone: Classics of Horror Fiction

Catalog description

This course discusses a number of seminal works – from Gothic novels to ghost stories and vampire epics – that exploit the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind: fear. Why are authors and readers fanatically drawn to something as disturbing as horror, supernatural or not? How do the gruesome or the macabre become sources of intellectual excitement and aesthetic gratification? How can texts whose intended effect is to shock and distress compel us to confront suppressed instincts, challenge deep-rooted certainties, or reflect on things and ideas that we generally prefer to ignore? Are you brave enough to find out?