Course Proposal Details for - American Gothic (Course code not assigned)
School
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Course Description
This course will look at Gothic Fiction in America from the late 18th-century to the
late 20th-century. Attention will be paid to the ways in which American writers
deployed and adapted various Gothic stylistic devices to represent key aspects of
the American experience. Of particular interest will be the approach the writers
on the course took to socio-cultural issues such as the frontier and wilderness, sex
and sexuality, slavery and racial differentiation, regional differentiation, urban
sprawl. We will also look at psychological concerns such as the representation of
Self and Other (at times Self-as-Other), the paranormal, and subjective
experience.
Normal Year Taken
Year 3 Undergraduate
Course Level (PG/UG)
UG
Visiting Student
Availability
Available to all students
SCQF Credits
20
Credit Level (SCQF)
SCQF Level 10
Home Subject Area
English Literature
Other Subject Area
Course Organiser
Keith Hughes
Course Secretary
June Haigh
% not taught by this
institution
Collaboration
Information (School /
Institution)
Total contact teaching
hours
20
Any costs to be met by
students
Essential course texts
Pre-requisites
Passes in English Literature 1, or Scottish Literature 1
and English Literature 2, or Scottish Literature 2 with a mark of 50 or above at the
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first attempt
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations
Visting Student Prerequisites
A MINIMUM of three college/university level literature courses at grade B or above
(should include no more than one introductory level literature course). Related
courses such as civilisation or creative writing are not considered for admissions to
this course.
Applicants should also note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the
minimum does NOT guarantee admission. In making admissions decisions
preference will be given to students who achieve above the minimum requirement
with the typical visiting student admitted to this course having three to four
literature classes at grade A.
Keywords
American Gothic Fiction Romance Horror Terror
Fee Code (if invoiced at
course level)
Proposer
Keith Hughes
Default Mode of Study
Classes & Assessment incl. centrally arranged exam
Default delivery period
Semester 2
Marking Scheme to be
employed
Common Marking Scheme - UG Honours Mark/Grade
Taught in Gaidhlig?
No
Course Type
Standard
Summary of Intended
Learning Outcomes/L01
By the end of the course, students will have gained a solid grounding in the works
of some key
American writers; this will build on the knowledge they bring from their prehonours readings in Romanticism, Victorianism and twentieth-century writing. The
students will be encouraged to read American writing for its own specificities and
in its transatlantic contexts, thus allowing their thinking and writing about
literature to gain in contextual depth. The students will by the end of the course
be well-versed in key areas of Gothic in general and of American Gothic in
particular: this will allow them to question generic boundaries while also allowing
them to understand why a writer might find the conventions of a specific genre
useful. Importantly, the course will help develop the students’ understanding of
the ways in which notions such as the differentiation between ‘popular’ and
‘literary’ culture can be interrogated and the ideological and commercial uses
they have.
Learning Outcome 2
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Learning Outcome 3
Learning Outcome 4
Learning Outcome 5
Special Arrangements
Components of
Assessment
One course essay of 2,500 words (25%)
One examination essay of 3,000 words (75%)
Exam Information
1st sit; April-May; take-home exam essay
Syllabus
Academic Description
Study Pattern
Transferable Skills
Study Abroad
Reading Lists
PRIMARY TEXTS
Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly (1799)
Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and selected stories
Edgar Allan Poe, selected stories
H.P. Lovecraft, selected stories
Hannah Crafts The Bondwoman’s Narrative (c.1850)
Charles W. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman and other Conjure Tales (1899)
Henry James, “The Ghostly Rental” (1876), and “The Jolly Corner” (1908)
Charlotte Perkins Gillman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951)
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” (1930)
Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (1952)
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
Stephen King, Night Shift (1978)
William Gaddis, Carpenter’s Gothic (1985)
KEY SECONDARY TEXTS
Linda Badley. Writing Horror and the Body: the Fiction of Stephen King, Clive
Barker, and Anne Rice. Westport Conn,; London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Brian Docherty, ed. American Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen
King. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Justin D. Edwards. Gothic Passages: Racial Ambiguity and the American Gothic.
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003.
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Markman Ellis. The History of Gothic Fiction. Edinburgh: EUP, 2000.
Leslie A. Fiedler. Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Criterion
Books, 1960.
Teresa A. Goddu. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997.
Louise Hutchings Westling. Sacred Groves and ravaged Gardens: the Fiction of
Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O’Connor. Athens, GA.: University
of Georgia Press, 1985.
Peter Kafer. Charles Brockden Brown’s Revolution and the Birth of American
Gothic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Christopher J. Knight. Hints and Guesses: Wiliam Gaddis’s Fiction of Longing.
Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997
Harry Levin. The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. London: Faber &
Faber, 1958.
Robert K. Martin and Eric Savoy, eds. American Gothic: New Inventions in a
National Narrative. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998
Marilyn Michaud. Republicanism and the American Gothic. Cardiff: University of
Wales Press, 2009.
Bernice M. Murphy. The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture. London:
palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
David Punter. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to
the present day. 2 volumes. London: Longman, 1996.
Allan Lloyd Smith. American Gothic Fiction. London: Continuum, 2005.
--- -------------- Uncanny American Fiction: Medusa’s Face. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1988.
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