Where my course ENG290 Contemporary Horror focuses mostly on current and popular horror fiction, social media-based horror stories, creepypasta, comics, and film, this course will take a turn towards the literary, and a journey into the past. We will study the classics of the horror genre as well as horror stories that are considered literary classics (overlapping lists to a certain extent: novels such as Beloved, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Turn of the Screw, and others; and films such as The Exorcist and Alien), and as we do, we will consider why horror stories so often lurk in the corners of the canon, occupying marginalized places in it. We will read secondary scholarship addressing the horror stories we study as well as theories of horror. Those who consider horror to be a low-brow genre will be surprised to learn that these secondary readings are incredibly sophisticated, suggesting there is far more to horror than simply being scared.
Course Requirements:
Students will write 6 very short (350-400 words) papers and 2 longer (1800-2000) papers that will grow out of the short papers.