Undergraduate Course: American Gothic (ENLI10348)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course will look at Gothic Fiction in America from the late 18th-century to the late 20th-century. Attention will be paid to the ways in which American writers deployed and adapted various Gothic stylistic devices to represent key aspects of the American experience. Of particular interest will be the approach the writers on the course took to socio-cultural issues such as the frontier and wilderness, sex and sexuality, slavery and racial differentiation, regional differentiation, urban sprawl. We will also look at psychological concerns such as the representation of Self and Other (at times Self-as-Other), the paranormal, and subjective experience. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | A MINIMUM of 4 college/university level literature courses at grade B or above (should include no more than one introductory level literature course). Related courses such as civilisation or other interdisciplinary classes, Freshman Year Seminars or composition/creative writing classes/workshops are not considered for admission to this course. Applicants should also note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission. In making admissions decisions preference will be given to students who achieve above the minimum requirement with the typical visiting student admitted to this course having 4 literature classes at grade A.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course **
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| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 15 |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Class Delivery Information |
1 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks: attendance at Autonomous Learning Group each week - at time to be arranged. |
| Course Start Date |
13/01/2014 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
75 %,
Coursework
25 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have gained a solid grounding in the works of some key
American writers; this will build on the knowledge they bring from their pre-honours readings in Romanticism, Victorianism and twentieth-century writing. The students will be encouraged to read American writing for its own specificities and in its transatlantic contexts, thus allowing their thinking and writing about literature to gain in contextual depth. The students will by the end of the course be well-versed in key areas of Gothic in general and of American Gothic in particular: this will allow them to question generic boundaries while also allowing them to understand why a writer might find the conventions of a specific genre useful. Importantly, the course will help develop the students' understanding of the ways in which notions such as the differentiation between 'popular' and 'literary' culture can be interrogated and the ideological and commercial uses they have.
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Assessment Information
One course essay of 2,500 words (25%);
One examination essay of 3,000 words (75%)
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Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
PRIMARY TEXTS
Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly (1799)
Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and selected stories
Edgar Allan Poe, selected stories
H.P. Lovecraft, selected stories
Hannah Crafts The Bondwoman¿s Narrative (c.1850)
Charles W. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman and other Conjure Tales (1899)
Henry James, ¿The Ghostly Rental¿ (1876), and ¿The Jolly Corner¿ (1908)
Charlotte Perkins Gillman, ¿The Yellow Wallpaper¿ (1892)
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951)
William Faulkner, ¿A Rose for Emily¿ (1930)
Flannery O¿Connor, Wise Blood (1952)
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
Stephen King, Night Shift (1978)
William Gaddis, Carpenter¿s Gothic (1985)
KEY SECONDARY TEXTS
Linda Badley. Writing Horror and the Body: the Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice. Westport Conn,; London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Brian Docherty, ed. American Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Justin D. Edwards. Gothic Passages: Racial Ambiguity and the American Gothic. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003.
Markman Ellis. The History of Gothic Fiction. Edinburgh: EUP, 2000.
Leslie A. Fiedler. Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Criterion Books, 1960.
Teresa A. Goddu. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Louise Hutchings Westling. Sacred Groves and ravaged Gardens: the Fiction of Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O¿Connor. Athens, GA.: University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Peter Kafer. Charles Brockden Brown¿s Revolution and the Birth of American Gothic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Christopher J. Knight. Hints and Guesses: Wiliam Gaddis¿s Fiction of Longing. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997
Harry Levin. The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. London: Faber & Faber, 1958.
Robert K. Martin and Eric Savoy, eds. American Gothic: New Inventions in a National Narrative. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998
Marilyn Michaud. Republicanism and the American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009.
Bernice M. Murphy. The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture. London: palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
David Punter. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the present day. 2 volumes. London: Longman, 1996.
Allan Lloyd Smith. American Gothic Fiction. London: Continuum, 2005.
--- -------------- Uncanny American Fiction: Medusa¿s Face. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | American Gothic Fiction Romance Horror Terror |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Keith Hughes
Tel: (0131 6)50 3048
Email: keith.hughes@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Anne Mason
Tel: (0131 6)50 3618
Email: Anne.Mason@ed.ac.uk |
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