Weird Fiction

Catalog description

This course will explore the rise of the speculative fiction genre known as “weird fiction,” an intersectional literature that incorporates elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Created and defined by H.P. Lovecraft, this literature consists of “a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.” Our exploration will include Lovecraft’s original weird tales but also the extended “Cthulhu mythos” in poetry, fiction, and film from the nineteenth century to the present.