Introductory description

The module aims to give students a detailed textual and theoretical grounding in the horror/gothic genre in the United States.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1

1. Introduction
2. Candyman (dir. Bernard Rose, 1992); The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011, dr. Chad Friedrichs)
3. HP Lovecraft, "The Horror at Red Hook"; Victor Lavalle, The Ballad of Black Tom ( 2016) "Teddy Perkins" (episode 6, season 2) from Atlanta.
4. The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980); EA Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"
5. Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
6. Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
7. Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (1984); The Hunger (1983)
8. James Dickey, Deliverance (1970); Deliverance (dir. John Boorman, 1972)
9. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974)
   Term 2
10. I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943); Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
11. George Romero, Night of the Living Dead (1968)
12. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic (2020)
13. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936)
14. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936)
15. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
16. Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘Young Goodman Brown’ (1835); The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)
17. Group video discussion (even for second years who did not have this assignment).

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate coherent and detailed knowledge of selected texts and concepts relating to the U.S. horror/gothic cultures;
• Deploy advanced analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts;
• Demonstrate a conceptual understanding that enables the development and sustaining of a critical argument
• Describe and comment on recent research and/or scholarship in subject
• Display on appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity, and contradictions within US gothic cultural productions
• Make appropriate use of scholarly reviews and primary sources
• Exhibit an advanced command of written English together with a wide-ranging and accurate vocabulary
• Apply confident textual analysis and fluent critical argument to initiate and carry out an extended essay
• Conduct independent research through self-formulated questions
• Produce work that displays the qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring the exercise of personal responsibility and decision-making, along with collective engagement
• Deploy the expression and communication of ideas across media forms

Indicative reading list

Noel Carroll, Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (1990)
Brigid Cherry, Horror (2009)
Charles Crow, ed., A Companion to American Gothic (2009)
Fredric Jameson, ‘Historicism in The Shining’ (1981)
Joan Copjec, ‘Vampires, Breast Feeding, and Anxiety’
Eugene Thacker, In the Dust of This Planet (2011)
Franco Moretti, ‘The Dialectic of Fear’ (1982)
Francois Debrix, Global Powers of Horror (2017)
Teresa Goddu, Gothic America (1997)
Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture (1998)
Eric Savoy, American Gothic (1998)
Mark Edmundson, Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of Gothic
(1997)
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror (1982)
Carol Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws (1993)
Kendall Phillips, Dark Directions (2012)
Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller, ed. Horror After 9/11 (2011)
Thomas Fahy, The Philosophy of Horror (2010)
Fred Botting, Gothic (2014)
---. Limits of Horror (2008)
Angela Ndalianis, The Horror Sensorium (2012)
Richard McGee, The Haunted Muse (2016)
Kyle Bishop, American Zombie Gothic (2010)
Bernice Murphy, Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (2009)

Subject specific skills

• Acquire knowledge of key theoretical and literary concepts and cultural and critical contexts within which to situate the set texts;
• Formulate analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts;
• Adjust to scholarly standards and protocols of presentation;
• Employ a main method for reading texts within the context of US horror/gothic cultures;
• Demonstrate a broad knowledge of selected texts and concepts relating to the U.S. horror/gothic cultures;
• Indicate a broad understanding of critical, analytic, and creative approaches to produce knowledge;
• Exhibit an effective command of written English together with a wide-ranging and accurate vocabulary;
• Display textual analysis and critical argument;
• Conduct independent research through self-formulated questions.

Transferable skills

• Acquire knowledge of key theoretical and literary concepts and cultural and critical contexts within which to situate the set texts;
• Formulate analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts;
• Adjust to scholarly standards and protocols of presentation;
• Indicate a broad understanding of critical, analytic, and creative approaches to produce knowledge;
• Exhibit an effective command of written English together with a wide-ranging and accurate vocabulary;
• Display textual analysis and critical argument;
• Conduct independent research through self-formulated questions.