The Literature Class That Will Haunt You—in the Best Way
What if a ghost touched your elbow?With this question, students begin to explore the concept of dread inGothic Literature, a boutique elective course the School of UniversityTransfer – Liberal Arts offers in theFall semester of alternate years (the odd years, of course). The class cozies up on Zoom twice a week to discuss a diverse selection of novels that could feature crumbling castles, mysterious thumps in the attic, ancient curses, dark figures, shocking secrets, creepy caretakers, and anything else we humans may imagine as chilling anxieties in the dark. What have we brought with us from the past that will continue tohaunt us here? Bring tea and a kitten to steady your nerves.
Gothic Literature invites curiosity, investigation, and pop culture deep dives while challenging students to read closely, think critically, and reflect on social/psychological past and present influences on literary culture. No string of garlic can save you from the traditional rigor of canonical texts and the tightly-focused, brief literary essays in MLA style.
To venture fully into the Uncanny Valley together, Gothic Literature students demo their understanding of the unsettling nature of dread and terror-versus-horror in a competitive Dread-full Show + Tell. They choose and present objects to the class, telling stories of the objects’ shivery origins; the goal is to instill the most lingering dread in their classmates who laugh nervously at the introduction of each item. They are nervous, but thrilled and curious. They can’t seem to look away, drawn in by the desire to figure out what, exactly, seems just a little bit…off. “Hold it up closer to your camera,” someone insists about a classmate’s curio, and then whispers,“Wait, what’s wrong with that doll’s face?”
Last year’s most dreadful objects included a haunted mirror once belonging to a nursing home patient now sadly deceased—presented by Tiffany Draeving-- and a plastic bag straight up full of human hair and teeth, unearthed and unexplained in Grandpa’s workshop—presented by Jonathan Smith. The stories aren’t true, right? Unless they are.