Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines literary “classics”, variously defined, apprehending them both on their own terms and within larger critical conversations. May incorporate the comparative study of work in related artistic fields and engage relevant media trends. Includes attention to writing skills. Students with credit for ENGL 101W may not take this course for further credit. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

h a u n t e d

Edgar Allan Poe, King of the Weird, says something especially weird in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” There he claims that what should really scare us are not scary things but our fear of those things. Wanna know more? Well, you could slog through books of philosophy (William James would help) and literary theory (hello Julia Kristeva and Tzvetan Todorov!), spend quality time with some of history’s freakier paintings (Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son anyone?), and watch Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook projected onto Poe’s Baltimore tombstone at midnight.

Or you could just take this class.

We’ll read old and new ‘classic’ horror and tales of haunting—our tentative list includes Ambrose Bierce, Octavia E. Butler, Angela Carter, Francis Marion Crawford, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nalo Hopkinson, Washington Irving, Shirley Jackson, Daniel Heath Justice, Joyce Carol Oates, Fitz-James O’Brien, and of course lots of Poe—and I’ll put it in the context of all that other stuff: philosophy, art, history, psychology, religion, and the occult. In these contexts this work becomes creepy for altogether new reasons. Beyond the required reading, we might have an optional Zoom coffeehouse (i.e., Zoffeehouse) to discuss a horror film or two. I may also host an optional book club where we’ll read perhaps the weirdest of modern haunted house stories, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. Finally, because this is a “W” course, we’ll talk a lot about writing. Does that scare you more than anything? It need not. To make the pill go down easier, we’ll read scary writers (Hilary Mantel, Stephen King, Poe) on writing like your life depends on it.

Content warning: Literature, like all art, insists on asking hard questions about us and the world in which we live. This means we’re going to deal at length with some tough topics, likely including physical, sexual, and racial violence; genocide; child abuse; incest; and suicide. At times there will also be considerable gore, which I know is hard for some people to take. (I have my limits, too, despite the fact that I’m a lover of horror movies.) If you have concerns whether you can handle the readings and/or discussions of this content, please think seriously about whether this is the course for you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out via email.

Course delivery heads-up: This is an in-person course, not a remote course. It will not go well if you cannot consistently attend lecture and tutorial in person. Because our particular lecture theatre does not support video recording, lectures will not be video recorded, though hopefully I'll be able to make audio available after the fact.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

1. Better understand how language, and especially figurative language, works;
2. recognize complex relationships between texts and contexts (e.g., historical, social, cultural, philosophical);
3. apprehend literature and writing generally as social critique;
4. develop skills in analyzing and interpreting language and text, broadly defined, and to learn strategies for creating and communicating informed claims about them; and
5. strengthen competency in engaging and responding to the ideas of others.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

With two exceptions all readings will be available for download from our course Canvas site. The two exceptions (noted under "Required Reading" below) are Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics, 2013) and Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s book They Say / I Say (5th ed., Norton, 2021). Both are available for purchase at SFU Bookstore.

Can you use a different edition of The Haunting of Hill House? Yes, so long as you don't mind your page numbers matching up with the ones from class, which can be a pain. Also, the edition I've assigned is pretty cool. You'll know why when you lay eyes on it.

Can you use a different edittion of They Say / I Say? It's not a good idea. I'll be assigning elements of the book's online component (access to which you get when you purchase the new edition), and completing these assignments will be part of your course grade. That said, access to the online components can be purchased separately from the book, so if you have an older edition or borrow the newest edition from a friend, you'll be okay: it'll just take some extra work on your part.

If you want to participate in the optional book club, should it happen, you can purchase House of Leaves on your own once the semester gets underway.

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: