American Gothic

Catalog description

This course studies the American Gothic tradition from the beginning of the nineteenth century through to today. The American Gothic genre includes texts dealing with horror, the eerie, the macabre, the supernatural, and the darkly psychological. Students in the course may study American Gothic authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Brandon Massey, among others. Attention will be paid to the transformation of writings in the genre over time, and to the historic and cultural contexts in which the different writings emerged.