• Participation (in person and in online discussions) 10%
• Formal writing exercises (3 at 250-300 words each) 30%
• Seminar paper draft (2500 words) with annotated bibliography 20%
• Seminar paper (about 3000 words) 35%
• Creative/critical/theoretical project (type/length up to you) 5%

NOTES:

Five notes about our texts and reading:  

(1) De Forest, Disoway, Gaskell, and Wilkins are all out of print, in the public domain, and available on Canvas. That said, I’d very much like you to read these texts in hard copy. (The jury’s in: retention stinks when reading online.) So we’ll do this: at our first class meeting I’ll ask who would like to order bound hard copies of these books. Since we don’t need copyright permission, they’ll be cheap (probably $5 to $7 each). The copy shop in Cornerstone can have them ready for us in just days. The Burr, Hawthorne, and Graff/Birkenstein, meanwhile, will be in the SFU bookstore for purchase, though feel free to purchase whatever edition elsewhere if you like.  

(2) We’ll read significant amounts of scholarship on New England Puritanism and witch hunting, as well as theoretical work on trauma and cosmopolitanism (all available on Canvas). We’ll use this material to better understand our subjects, obviously, but also as fodder for practical and conceptual discussions about the writing process. My point: we’re not just going to do a lot of formal and informal writing; we’re going to talk a lot about writing, too.  

(3) In the company of one or two peers, each student will read an additional popular 19th-century witchcraft novel to introduce to the class. These introductions will be low-key affairs designed to complement rather than dominate class time, and they will factor into your participation grade. I will assign the texts, all of which are in the public domain and available on Canvas.  

(4) Robert Eggers’ 2015 film The Witch is a historically informed, unnerving visualization of the lived experience of 17th-century New England witchcraft and the Puritan “wonderworld,” i.e., the supernaturally infused reality in which Puritans lived day to day via their faith. It’s set before Salem but is a pitch-perfect depiction of the fear that gripped all the British North American colonies, not just New England. Please watch the film prior to our first class. I’ll be referencing it early on as I help you understand the religious physics of the world we’ll be inhabiting. For a primer on the film, read Anthony Lane’s excellent New Yorker review at www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/the-witch-review. Heads up: The Witch is pretty creepy and is rated R, with modest nudity.

(5) I’ve already gotten this question, so I’ll go ahead and answer it: Why isn’t Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on the reading list? Because it was published in the 1950s, and, in my humble opinion, its representation of its subject is wanting.