32205
Advanced Seminar
WiSe 21/22: Horrible Knowledge: What the Gothic Knows
James Dorson
Information for students
This course will be held in-person (on campus).
Comments
Dark forests, secret chambers, hidden doors, eerie sounds, dense fogs, mysterious villains—such are the stock tropes of Gothic fiction. The Gothic mode per definition presents an obstacle to clear sight and empirical knowledge. Rather than illuminate a topic, the senses are betrayed: the Gothic’s task is not to enlighten but to endarken; it shrouds, cloaks, deceives, mystifies. And yet, the Gothic doesn’t only obfuscate knowledge; it also knows something. Scholarship has long associated the mode with the return of the repressed, with giving voice to the dispossessed, with the surfacing of the uncanny, with unspeakable history, with the haunting of the mistreated. In other words, the Gothic deals with the unreal in order to articulate the terrors of reality. It sheds light through darkness, if you will.
This class will examine the particular types of horrible knowledge that the Gothic articulates. Divided into four sections, the class will analyze Gothic framings in literature of anti-Black violence, indigenous genocide, capitalist exploitation, and sexual repression.
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16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Thu, 2021-10-21 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-10-28 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-11-04 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-11-11 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-11-18 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-11-25 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-12-02 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-12-09 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2021-12-16 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-01-06 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-01-13 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-01-20 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-01-27 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-02-03 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-02-10 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2022-02-17 12:00 - 14:00