American
Gothic
Course Description:
"American Gothic" inquires into the nature and purposes
of civic fear. It proposes that religious terror is one of the
chief influences shaping the popular culture of the United States.
Theological formulas and rhetoric, although legally “unspeakable,”
are, to the contrary, spoken everywhere. Theology and fantasy
are considered “marginal” to the day-to-day life of
most Americans, yet these twin forces intersect in the private
and public life of American politics and entertainment. That
is, Christian theological principles -- for instance, the love
of God, revelation, and apocalypse -- entimentalized, are used
to create policies of social fear. For example, prohibition
and taboo make possible, on the one hand, “Don’t Ask
Don’t tell” policies of social deviancy, while on
the other hand, the lure of secrets and spectacle are major
features of the contemporary market of American Horror. This
is the American Gothic we shall study: deviancy and taboo must
be secret and hidden, yet available in book, on TV, and in News
as spectacle and scandal for all.
This
course will explore one source for the American Gothic, beginning
with the civic dreams of Puritan writers and thinkers to the
nightmare theologies of Jonathan Edwards. We will then look
at the inversion of this language in fantasists like Edgar
Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft, and Stephen King. We will consider,
if not directly examine, the political uses of this language
in speeches and in nationalist hymns and poetry from Abraham
Lincoln through Ronald Reagan and beyond. Finally, we will
examine various strands of of contemporary American Gothic,
particularly cinema work dating from the fifties forward (Night
of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Exorcist, Texas
Chain Saw Massacre). We will consider popular culture and
the cult of the dismembered body in films like Chain Saw Massacre
and American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) . How does the Awe-ful
-- traditionally, the experience of God -- give way to the
Awful? How does the language of God and public piety give
us a language of Monsters? Finally, what are monsters for
in a society?
Course
Syllabus:
Introduction:
Aug. 29: Syllabus and terms: religion, gothic
*Initial questions: What is the place of terror in the psychic
life of the individual? What is the function
of terror in the communal life of the state?
*Reading Gothic: Psychological, political, aesthetic, theological,
and economic discourses.
*Home Assignment: Four definitions of Gothic: Goddu (in Gelder);
Martin; Gross; Otto
Sept.
5: Reading Gothic: Theoretical texts: Aesthetics, Politics,
Theology, Economy, The Body Politic: Identity Politics
Sept.
10: Bradford, Winthrop (in Miller, Puritans, and Online):
Transgression and identity.
Sept. 12: Nathaniel Ward and Michael Wigglesworth (in Miller,
Puritans): Enemies from within
Assignment: #1: close reading of text
Rites
of Deviancy: Perfect Enemies
Sept. 17: Cotton Mather and Salem Witch hunts: useful witchery.
Sept. 19: Rowlandson, “The Captivity”; John Williams,
“The Redeemed Sinner”; Captivity *The various uses
of a Moral Text: orifices, grotesque bodies and bodies of
the saints
Writing
the holy: Horror and the limits of speech
Sept.
24: Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the hands of an angry
God” (Online)
Sept. 26: From Prayer to Parody: Poe, "Pit and the Pendulum”;
“The Black Cat”
Readings: Ingebretsen, Maps of Heaven, reserve; Lovecraft:
“Supernatural Horror” (online); Otto, “The
Idea of the Holy”]
Assignment #2: Textual dissonance: Evidence of Gothic: Poe
Oct.
1: Lovecraft, “Dunwich horror” (online)
Oct. 3: Stephen King, Carrie
Oct.
8: Columbus Day holiday
Oct. 10: Carrie; Gelder, “Intro section 2; Creed, “Feminism
and Abjection”
[Supplementary Readings: “Cotton Mather and Stephen King:
Writing/Righting the Body Politic,” Ingebretsen; Winthrop,
“Speech to the General Court,” in Miller, Puritans]
Assignment #3: Civic Memory and the Gothic
Oct 15:
Mid-semester review : The Theory of Gothic
Oct. 17: In-class midterm
Oct. 22: 50s secrets. Revelations and Paranoia: The birth
of popular culture: Gelder, “the Field of Horror”]
[Supplementary Readings: Fiedler, Love and Death in American
Novel, online reserve]
60s and
beyond: Gothic America
Oct. 24:
Film discussion: “Dawn of the Dead.” [“American
Horrors,” Heller, in Gelder]
Oct. 29: “Horrality,” Brophy, in Gelder
Oct. 31: The Exorcist discussion [Screening for Halloween?]
Nov. 5: Reading crypto-religion: The Exorcist, Rosemary’s
Baby, The Omen, etc.
Reading: “Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell” Moretti,
“Dialectic of Fear”;
Assignment #4: Reading a cinema scene
Pop Culture
and Slasher Gothic
Nov.
7: American Psycho
Nov. 12: American Psycho: [Supplementary: [Texas Chain Saw
Massacre]
Readings: Smith, “Gothic and Post-modernity” (Online
reserve); Selzer, “Serial Killer as Person” Clover,
“Her Body, Himself”
Media
Gothic:
Nov.
14: Cohen, “Monsters: Seven Theses”
Nov. 19: Making the American Monster: Cunanan.
Readings: Time magazine, “Tagged for Murder,” online;
“Uses of Monsters”; Gelder, Intro, Part III; Halberstam,
“Parasites and Perverts”; Ingebretsen, “Monster
in the House,” electronic reserve
Nov.
21: [walking the line: Gothic shockudrama; Dahmer, A&E]
Fear
and the current scene
Nov. 26:
Reading the News: Pleasures of the confessing body and the
rubric of scandal: Bill Clinton
Readings: “Winthrop, Wigglesworth and Starr: Sex and
General Wickedness in public”
Assignment #5: Gothic News
Apocalypse:
Tales of the end and the city on the hill
Nov.
28: Armageddon, arryans, race, gender-failure, and christian
Gothic [clips from Birth of a nation
Readings: “Blood in the Face.” “Timothy McVeigh”
[electronic reserve: “Staking the Monster: Politics of
Remonstrance”; Godhatesfags.com; wiredstrategies.com]
Dec.
3: Reprise and Review:
Dec. 5:
Assignment
#6: free choice
*for
other resources related to American Gothic (for enrolled students
only) please see the Blackboard website
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