It’s difficult to locate, between the simultaneously metaphorical and literal applications of the term, exactly what it means to be “haunted.” But in the United States, there have been various attempts by cultural critics, philosophers, writers and theologians of diverse schools of thought, to identify and to leverage the genuine salience of this term and its resonant implications as a tool of cultural and political critique. In this course, we will read, watch and write about a variety of cultural artifacts constituting the genre of horror as situated within the distinctive parameters of American art and intellectual life, using essay assignments to develop not only our skills as readers, writers and critics, but also our own understandings of what it means to live as inheritors of a uniquely haunted cultural tradition.