Course Syllabus

Spring Semester 2008

MWF 2:00-2:50, Grubbs Hall 304

Dr. K. Nichols: knichols@pittstate.edu

Course Description

This course will examine how representations of horror and terror in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature encode our individual and national anxieties about the dark side of life--our fears of the unknown, the irrational, the supernatural; our fears of victimization, of sexuality, of identity-loss; our fears of dissolving or transgressed boundaries between self and other, sanity and madness, civilization and savagery, good and evil. Beginning with the dark romantic gothic of Brown, Hawthorne, and Poe, we will trace these themes, including "female gothic" and "racial gothic," up to the present. Several classic horror films will also be viewed.

Required Texts

• Charles Brockden Brown. Wieland, or the Transformation. Prometheus Books, ISBN-10: 1573921750.
• Edgar Allan Poe. The Gold-Bug and Other Tales. Dover, ISBN-10: 0486268756.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne. Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales. Oxford UP, ISBN-10: 0192836005.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper. Dover, ISBN-10: 0486298574.
• Henry James. The Turn of the Screw. Dover, ISBN-10: 0486266842.
• Flannery O'Connor. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. Harvest Books, ISBN-10: 0156364654.
• Shirley Jackson. The Haunting of Hill House. Penguin, ISBN-10: 0140071083.
• Herman Melville. Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno. Dover, ISBN-10: 0486264734.
• Richard Wright. Native Son [NOTE: Abridged Edition]. HarperTrade Perennial, ISBN-10: 006053348X.
• Toni Morrison. Beloved. Penguin, ISBN-10: 1400033411.

Additional shorter texts (handouts or online copies of stories and poems) are listed on the Reading Schedule.

Grading

• 3 exams (20% each)
• 2 papers (20% each). Online directions.

All major assignments must be completed to pass the course.

You may e-mail papers to me at knichols@pittstate.edu, but make sure they are attached as a .doc file.

Late Work Policy

Late papers will be graded down one letter grade for each day they are late.

Missed exams must be made up just as soon as possible. See me immediately when you return to class.

Absence Policy:

Regular attendance is required. Everyone has four pre-excused absences for those difficult times in life that interfere with class attendance, so you do not need to clear absences with me, but it is a good idea to check with me (or a classmate) to make sure an assignment was not changed while you were gone.

Students who miss more than four classes may be dropped from the roster for "excessive absences."

Plagiarism Policy:

I strongly support the policies of the English Department and the University on plagiarism. Undocumented use of someone else's material (including "borrowing" their language or their ideas) will result in an F on the paper or for the course--or worse for the most egregious cases.

See me if you have questions about what is or is not plagiarism. I'm always happy to help students who make a good-faith effort to do things right.

Course Web Pages:

You can quickly access our online syllabus by typing in one of the following addresses:

• Engl 566 Course Syllabus: faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/goth.html.
• Engl 566 Reading Schedule: faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/goth2.html.
• Dr. Nichols' Home Page: members.cox.net/academia/nichols.html.

You can also access my home page (which links to all my web pages) by going to the PSU home page and then typing "Nichols Home Page" in the "PSU Search" box (top of page).

Instructor's Office Hours:

My office is in Grubbs Hall, Room 450. I can be available at the following times to talk with you about our course or related matters. If that time does not fit your schedule, let me know. We can arrange a more convenient time.

• MWF 1:00-2:00; 3:00-4:00
• TTh 10:45-11:15; 2:00-3:30
• By appointment

The best ways to contact me are to leave a note taped to my office door or, even better, email me at the following address: knichols@pittstate.edu.

Return to Dr. Nichols' Home Page