Crowded by decaying buildings, populated by once great families in financial decline, beset by tempestuous weather, and bedeviled by madness bordering on the monstrous: America’s response to Europe's Romantic Gothic movement has been broadly called the “Southern Gothic.” But how do individual regions of the United States put their own twist on the gothic genre? This seminar takes a multimedia approach to “mapping” different regional elements of Gothic narrative in America. We’ll trace the legacy of the European Gothic tradition through time, space, and medium. Course texts will include short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Connor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Shirley Jackson; music by singer songwriters like Bruce Springsteen and Ethel Cain; and movies from David Lynch and Sophia Coppola. Along the way, we will consider: How is Puritan New England like the Antebellum South? Are there more ghosts in the mountains of Appalachia or the bayous of Louisiana? And where do greater horrors lurk-- in the abandoned factories of the Rust Belt, or the persistent fogs of the Oregon coast? Informal reflection papers, short in-class presentations, and close readings will form the basis for longer writing assignments.
- Instructor of record: Mary Alcaro