LIT 292-IH2 The Uncanny
Mikita.brottman@gmail.com
Monday 9:00 - 11:45 am B360
Office Hours: by appointment
The Uncanny
Please note: this version of the syllabus is provisional and subject to change. For the full
weekly syllabus, with links to the weekly reading and progress reports, go to
http://uncannymica.wordpress.com/
You feel the hair on the back of your neck starting to stand up. Goosebumps are rising on
your arms. Something creepy is going on, but you can't explain it why it’s so disturbing.
Chances are, you are in the presence of the uncanny.
Famously, Sigmund Freud defined the uncanny as the feeling evoked by being in the
presence of something simultaneously familiar and strange, though his explanation is
complex, and the length of a short book. In this course, we will treat the experience of the
uncanny as a resource for creativity and a springboard for theory. We’ll challenge ourselves
to find examples of the uncanny in literature, psychology, folklore, and film, with attention
to the inflection of the uncanny on the cultural other. We’ll engage with the uncanny across
a wide range of texts and contexts, drawn mainly from literature and film. Discussion will
focus on a number of linked topics, including repetition, doubles, strange coincidences,
animism, live burial, telepathy, death and rebirth. The course aims to develop students'
engagement with the notion of the uncanny across a broad range of literary and other
texts; to develop students' skills of reading and critical analysis, especially insofar as the
uncanny by its nature engenders intellectual uncertainty and calls for an unusual critical
patience; to enhance students' capacity for critical reflection on their experience of the
familiar and the strange, the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Wordpress site:
All weekly projects and much course information will be on the website. Your connection
to the Internet, and use of it, is your responsibility. Posts must be posted by midnight on
the Saturday prior to class. No points for late posts.
Writing
Always proofread your writing before posting. Posts that do not conform to the rules of
standard written English will have points deducted based on the severity of the errors. If
writing is a weakness for you, please make an appointment with the college Writing Center
to improve your skill. Once students reach the college level, there are basic standards that
should be met regardless of the subject. Clear, organized, and grammatically correct
writing is one of those standards. Even artists have to write papers that require a basic
mastery of the English language. Clarity of exposition is extremely important, and you can't
have it without correct use of the language. Good writing takes effort.
Learning Outcomes
By completing this course, students will:
(a) engage with the notion of the Uncanny across a broad range of texts;
(b) develop skills in reading, writing and critical analysis;
(c) learn to accept intellectual uncertainty and develop critical patience;
(d) reflect critically on the familiar and the strange, the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Grades
10 blog posts at 3 points each: 30 points.
2 multiple-choice quizzes, worth 20%.
1 presentation, worth 20%
1 final in-class long paper worth 30%.
Class Expectations
Please respect your fellow students by arriving for class on time, with your books and
reading materials. There will be no need for laptops in class. Please: no texting, tweeting or
use of electronic devices during class. Quizzes will begin right on time. If you arrive late,
you’ll miss the quiz – do not ask for a make up. My dog Oliver will usually come to class. If
he bothers you, please send me an e-mail and I’ll leave him in my office.
Your Progress in this Course
The blog has a page called “Check Your Progress.” I will update your score every week so
you know exactly how many points you have at every stage of the course. There’s no reason
why you should be surprised by your grade. Do not ask for make-up tests, posts or
presentations. If you miss anything, you must deal with the consequences, as you would in
any other situation
Presentations: Feb 9, Feb 16, March 2, March 9, March 23, April 6, April 13, 20 27.
95-100=A+
66-70=C+
90-95=A
60-65=C
86-90=A-
56-60=C-
80-85=B+
50-55=D+
76-80=B
46-50=D
REQUIRED READING
Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London, Penguin) Other editions are acceptable.
Weekly Syllabus
(1) Mon Jan 26: Intro to the Course
“In his essay on the uncanny, Das Unheimliche, Freud said that the uncanny is the only
feeling which is more powerfully experienced in art than in life. If the genre required any
justification, I should think this alone would serve as its credentials.” – Stanley Kubrick
The Uncanny (Powerpoint) Lecture Notes
This week’s reading: Intro to Freud, The Uncanny (ppvii-lx)
Extract from Sir James Frazer The Golden Bough (1922)
Draw lots for presentation dates.
No blog post required this week
(2) Monday Feb 2: The Sandman
Read: Freud, The Uncanny part 1 (p123-134); E.T.A. Hoffmann, “The Sandman” (1816).
(printable pdf version here: 20 pages: The Sandman).
Class viewing: Rich Ragsdale, “The Sandman” (2007) Christina Bachler & Felix Metzler,
“Nathanael” (2008); Tales of Hoffmann, Offenbach, doll song sung by Edita Gruberova,
1993. The Chordettes, Mr. Sandman.
Blog post 1
(3) Wednesday Feb 9: Dolls, Dummies, Puppets & Dwarfs
Dolls, dummies, puppets & dwarfs are all examples of the homunculus, or “little man”. Like
humans, but not quite, they share aspects of our familiar world but inhabiting another,
teasing our imaginations to enter the unfamiliar. Not all dolls or puppets share the
uncanny; you know the difference when you see it. Gounod (1818-1893), Funeral March of
a Marionette; Puppet Court from I Am Suzanne (1934); Ventriloquist Dummy Sequence,
from Dead of Night (1945); Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978); Terrifying Ventriloquists’
Dummies. This week’s reading: “The New Idols”, from Victoria Nelson, The Secret Lives of
Puppets, Harvard University Press, 2001 (p60-66); Steve Speer, For Fear of Little Men “, in
Adam Parfrey, ed., Apocalypse Culture II, LA: Feral House, 1987.
Presentation:
Blog post 2
(4) Monday February 16: Uncanny Places
What makes a place Uncanny? Different places affect people in different ways. We don’t all
feel the same way about particular places. What kind of place is Uncanny to you?Typically,
these are abandoned hospitals, asylums, factories, amusement parks, ghost towns and so
on. But they can be more banal and small scale than that. For example, here are five
examples of uncanny rooms I found in a real estate blog. What makes them uncanny?
Room one; room two; room three; room four; room five. ALSO: Death Sites, Sedlec
Ossuary, Jan Svanjmajer (1970); Crypt of the Capuchins (Music: Camille Saint-Saens,
“Danse Macabre”).Read: Sarah Burns, “Better For Haunts”, Victorian Houses and the
Modern Imagination, American Art, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 2-25.
Monoliths and Megaliths. Callanish. Worship of Pan. More Pan.
Presentation:
No blog post this week: prepare for quiz.
(5) Monday Feb 23
Quiz on material covered so far.
Movie, Roman Polanski, The Tenant (1976)
Blog post 3
(6) Monday March 2: The Double
Of the themes of uncanniness, Freud says: “These themes are all concerned with the idea of
a “double” in every shape and degree, with persons, therefore, who are to be considered
identical by reason of looking alike; Hoffman accentuates this relation by transferring
mental processes from the one person to the other—what we should call telepathy—so
that the one possesses knowledge feeling and experience in common with the other, identifies
himself with another person, so that his self becomes confounded, of the foreign self is
substituted for his own—in other words, by doubling, dividing and interchanging the self.
And finally there is the constant recurrence of similar situations, a same face, of charactertrait, or twist of fortune, or a same crime, of even a same name recurring throughout
several consecutive generations".
Read: Truman Capote, “Miriam” (1945).
Presentation:
Blog post 4
(7) March 9: Ghosts & Spirits
Freud believed ghosts of dead loved ones could be explained as “an opposition by the
bereaved so intense that a turning away from reality takes place and a clinging to the object
through the medium of hallucinatory wistful psychosis”. The fear of ghosts is widespread
even in post-industrial societies. Philosopher Peter van Inwagen wrote: “…I am perfectly
aware that the fear of ghosts is contrary to science, reason and religion. If I were sentenced
to spend a night alone in a graveyard, <…> I should already know that twigs would snap
and the wind moan and that there would be half-seen movements in the darkness. And yet,
after I had been frog-marched into the graveyard, I should feel a thrill of fear every time
one of these things happened…” In many traditional accounts, ghosts are often thought to
be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did
during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of
death. Seeing one’s own ghostly double or doppelgänger is a related omen of death.
Presentation:
No blog post this week
(8) March 16: Spring Break
(9) Monday March 23: Uncanny Families
All families are strange from the outside, but some families are positively Uncanny.
Families are archives that record the traces of lives, sources of remembering and forgetting.
And what is forgotten is as important as what is remembered. Sometimes what is forgotten
can return. At other times, what is forgotten reappears in ghostly traces, a kind of pattern
that weighs upon us across generations. Still other times, what is forgotten never could
have been. This week’s reading: Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements” (pdf) (1992)
Presentation:
Blog post 5
(10) Monday March 30: Quiz & Movie
Quiz on material covered in weeks 6-10
Movie: Herk Hervey, Carnival of Souls (1962)
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
Blog post 6
(11) Monday April 6: Uncanny Bodies
The human body is a strange and mysterious thing. Some people have extra fingers, some
have to missing body parts, some have congenital tails and some have accidental
deformities. From a certain perspective, however, even the "normal" human body is deeply
uncanny. Clip: Teeth. This Week's Reading: Janice Galloway, “Blood” (1991) (pdf). Mark
Dery, "Toe Fou" and "Open Wide", from I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, U Minn Press 2013.
Presentation
Blog post 7
(10) Monday April 13: Uncanny Animals
Animals have always been part of the creative imagination, and uncanny animals have
emerged from the interaction of painters, printmakers, artisans, cartographers, and natural
historians. All these practitioners carefully observed, pictured and cataloged exotic
animals, and they also engaged in a joint, conjectural guesswork as to what other, as yet
unknown animals might hide in the jungles and rivers of unknown places.
Presentation
Blog post 8
(11) Wednesday April 20: Uncanny Machines
Machines can be uncanny, especially when they're ludicrously complicated, impractical or
elaborate. We'll get into technology next week, but this week we'll be focusing on
mechanical devices that have an element of the absurd, mysterious, fantastical or simply
disgusting.
Presentation
Blog post 9
(12) Monday April 27:
Presentation
Blog post 10
(13) Monday May 4
Final In-Class Exam
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the Learning Resource Center at 410-225-2416, in Bunting 458, to establish eligibility and
coordinate reasonable accommodations. For additional information please refer to:
http://www.mica.edu/LRC
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and to assure that their respective classroom procedures mirror the EHS and Academic
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students and faculty. Most importantly, faculty are to act in accordance with all safety
compliance, state and federal, as employees of this college and are expected to act as
examples of how to create art in a way to minimize risk, and reduce harm to themselves
and the environment. Faculty must identify, within each art making process, and require
personal protection equipment use, by each student for each class, when applicable.
Students are required to purchase personal protection equipment appropriate to their
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