Schedule

ENGL 2033: American Gothic Fiction

Reading and Assignment Schedule

 

Tuesday, August 22

Course Introductions

What constitutes “Gothic” Literature?

Homework: Read article on Gothic or Horror

Read “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (course documents)

 

Thursday, August 24

Discussion on Horror and Gothic

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Witchcraft as American Gothic mythology

Homework: Read “The Confessions of Tituba” (course documents)

 

Tuesday, August 29

Witchcraft

Discuss “The Confessions of Tituba”/Gothic trends

Homework: Read excerpts from The Crucible (course documents)

 

Thursday, August 31

Witchcraft

Themes present in witchcraft literature

View segments from The Witch

Quiz #1

Homework: Read to Chapter 8 in The Turn of the Screw

 

 

Tuesday, September 5

Turn of the Screw and Early Twentieth-Century

Henry James background

Turn of the Screw discussion

Homework: Finish reading The Turn of the Screw

                   Read “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe (course documents)

 

Thursday, September 7

Quiz #2

Discussion on Turn of the Screw and “The Oval Portrait”

View clips from Dracula (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein

Homework: Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

 

Tuesday, September 12

Women’s Tradition

“The Yellow Wallpaper”

Background on Flannery O’Connor

Homework: Read “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” (course documents)

 

 

Thursday, September 14

Flannery O’Connor

Discussion of O’Connor’s style and themes

Homework: Read Chapter 1-5 of Wise Blood

 

Tuesday, September 19

Wise Blood/Cold War Anxieties

Homework: Read Chapter 6-9 of Wise Blood

 

Thursday, September 21

Cold War Background

Wise Blood

Quiz #3

Homework: Finish Wise Blood

 

Tuesday, September 26

Finish Wise Blood discussion

Information on the midterm exam

Homework: Read Rod Serling’s “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” and “The Midnight Sun” (course documents)

 

Thursday, September 28

View “The After Hours”

Discuss Serling’s stories

Homework: Read Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” and “Masque of the Red Death”

 

Tuesday, October 3

Discuss Poe’s stories/connections

Shirley Jackson introduction

Homework: Read Jackson’s “The Tooth” “The Lottery” “the Intoxicated” and “The Daemon Lover” (course documents)

 

Thursday, October 5

No Class

Midterms due on Blackboard by 11:59 p.m.

Homework: Read The Haunting of Hill House

 

Tuesday, October 10

No Class: Reading Days

 

Thursday, October 12

Discussion of Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House

Quiz #4

Homework: Read segments from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (course documents)

Read segments from Hangsaman (course documents)

 

 

Tuesday, October 17

Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House

Introduction to The Shining

Homework: Read background of The Shining and film analysis

 

Thursday, October 19

View the first half of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

 

Tuesday, October 24

Finish The Shining

Discussion, if time

Homework: Read Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” (course documents), Read Part I of Rosemary’s Baby

 

Thursday, October 26

I will be presenting at a conference at the University of Massachusetts

No Class

 

Tuesday, October 31

Discussion of The Shining

Begin talking about Rosemary’s Baby

Quiz #5

Homework: Read Part II of Rosemary’s Baby

 

Thursday, November 2

Rosemary’s Baby

The late 1960’s

Homework: Finish Rosemary’s Baby, Read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” (course documents)

 

Tuesday, November 7

Finish discussing Rosemary’s Baby

View scene from Psycho

The Gothic trope of Insanity

Homework: Excerpts from Nelly Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse (course documents), Read Prologue-Chapter 4 of Shutter Island

 

Thursday, November 9

Cold War reprise, Shutter Island/insanity

Homework: Read Chapter 5-11 of Shutter Island

 

Tuesday, November 14

Shutter Island

Quiz #6

Homework: Finish Shutter Island/Topic Proposals due Thursday

 

 

 

Thursday, November 16

Finish discussion on Shutter Island

Due: Topic Proposals

Homework: Read Hedi Julavit’s “The Miniaturist” (Course Documents)

 

Tuesday, November 21

Discuss postmodern Gothic

“The Miniaturist”

Introduction to It Follows

 

Thursday, November 23

Thanksgiving Break

No Class

 

Tuesday, November 28

View It Follows

 

Thursday, November 30

Finish It Follows

End of Course discussion

Final Project Due by December 5