Film Studies 220AG - American Gothic

An examination of the gothic--a world of fear, haunting, claustrophobia, paranoia, and monstrosity--in American literature and culture, with an emphasis upon issues of race and gender. Topics include slavery and the gothic; gothic sexuality; Southern, Northern, and national gothic; freakishness and grotesquerie; and visual gothic. Focus on fiction, with some film and photography. Authors, filmmakers, and artists may include Alcott, Arbus, Browning, Crane, Dunbar, Dunn, Elmer, Faulkner, Gilman, Hitchcock, Kubrick, McCullers, Morrison, O'Connor, Oates, Parks, Poe, Romero, Turner, and Wood.

Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors