Full of decaying buildings populated by those in socioeconomic decline, beset by tempestuous weather and bedeviled by madness that borders 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.
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The Balch Seminars introduce all first-year students at Bryn Mawr to a critical, probing, thoughtful approach to the world and our roles in it. These challenging seminars are taught by scholar/teachers of distinction within their fields and across academic disciplines. They facilitate the seminars as active discussions among students, not lectures. Through intensive reading and writing, the thought-provoking Balch Seminars challenge students to think about complex, wide-ranging issues from a variety of perspectives."
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The Balch Seminars introduce all first-year students at Bryn Mawr to a critical, probing, thoughtful approach to the world and our roles in it. These challenging seminars are taught by scholar/teachers of distinction within their fields and across academic disciplines. They facilitate the seminars as active discussions among students, not lectures. Through intensive reading and writing, the thought-provoking Balch Seminars challenge students to think about complex, wide-ranging issues from a variety of perspectives."
- Instructor of record: Mary Alcaro