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CS92PROD
Gothic Bodies
ENGL 317
Fall 2024
Section: 01  

This seminar examines the Gothic mode and its literary afterlives in the texts of the British empire. During the nineteenth-century, the Gothic mode--darkened old houses, discoverable family secrets, mysterious moving objects, threatened bodies--migrated to a wide range of narrative forms. We will read some of this range, exploring early political fiction, science fiction, slave narratives, domestic fiction, and the ghost story. We'll think about how the Gothic mode was used to imagine different kinds of harm to bodies. We'll explore how these formal conventions involving unseen terrors, old family houses, and threatened bodies intersected with some of the key formations of the period: the rise of individualism, industrial and racial capitalism, Orientalism, automation, changes in property and inheritance law, theories of freedom and slavery and sexual consent. Along the way, we'll read key theorists who write about the Gothic as we develop our own theories of how to read the ways this genre still haunts our present.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: None
Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74%

Last Updated on NOV-14-2024
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