Reading Schedule

Fall Semester 2009

MWF 11:00-11:50, Grubbs Hall 312

Dr. K. Nichols: knichols@pittstate.edu

Week One

• 08/24--Introduction. Visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 101.

Dark Romantic Gothic

• 08/26--An Introduction to the Gothic Tradition (online)
  Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.
  Helpful terms: Romanticism/Dark Romanticism and Sensibility and Ancestral Curse and Dreaming/Nightmares.
• 08/28--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.

Week Two

• 08/31--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.
  Helpful terms: dopplegänger and The Marvelous vs. the Uncanny and Freud’s Unheimlich (the Uncanny).
• 09/02--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.
• 09/04--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--finish.
  PAPER #1 ASSIGNED (see online directions)-- due 09/16.
  Helpful term: Unreliable Narrator.

Week Three

• 09/07--Labor Day Holiday (no class)
• 09/09--Edgar Allan Poe, "Fall of the House of Usher" in The Gold-Bug and Other Tales.
  Helpful Terms: The Haunted Castle or House and Mystery and Entrapment & Imprisonment and Claustrophobia.
• 09/11--Edgar Allan Poe, "The Black Cat" in The Gold-Bug and Other Tales.

Week Four

• 09/14--VIDEO: The Black Cat (1934 film; 65 min.)
• 09/16--PAPER #1 DUE.
  VIDEO: The Black Cat (1934 film; 65 min.)
  Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (online).
  TAKE-HOME EXAM #1 ASSIGNED--due 09/23.
• 09/18-- Edgar Allan Poe, "Ligeia" in The Gold-Bug and Other Tales.
  Helpful Term: Transformation/metamorphosis.

Week Five

• 09/21--Nathaniel Hawthorne, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories.
• 09/23--TAKE-HOME EXAM #1 DUE (no class). Submit as an email attachment (.doc file), if possible, or slide under my office door, Grubbs 450.

• 09/25--Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories.

Week Six

Female Gothic: The Bronte Influence

• 09/28--Louisa May Alcott, "A Whisper in the Dark," Part I and Part II (online).
  Helpful Terms: The Female Gothic and Pursuit of the Heroine and Villain-Hero.
• 09/30--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--read 37 pages.
• 10/02--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--read 37 pages.

Week Seven

• 10/05--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--finish.
• 10/07--Emily Dickinson, poems (online): I heard a Fly; I felt a Funeral; The Soul has Bandaged moments; One need not be a Chamber; In Winter in my Room; It was not Death; If I may have it when it's dead..
  Begin reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--60 pp.
  PAPER #2 ASSIGNED (see online directions)--due 10/26.
• 10/09--Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat (online).
  Continue reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--60 pages.

Week Eight

• 10/12--Sylvia Plath, poems (online). The Disquieting Muses; Pursuit; The Moon and the Yew Tree; Daddy; Lady Lazarus; In Plaster; Tulips.
  Continue reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting . . .--60 pages.

Southern Gothic; Sci Fi Gothic

• 10/14--William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily (online).
  Finish reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting . . . .
• 10/16--Mid-Term Break (no class)

Week Nine

• 10/19--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)
• 10/21--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)
• 10/23--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)

Week Ten

• 10/26--PAPER #2 DUE
  William Faulkner, That Evening Sun (online).
  TAKE-HOME EXAM 2 ASSIGNED--due 11/2.
• 10/28--Flannery O'Connor, "The Displaced Person" in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.
  Helpful Term: Grotesque.
• 10/30--Flannery O'Connor, "A Stroke of Good Fortune" in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.

Week Eleven

• 11/02--O'Connor "catch-up" day.

Racial Gothic: Slavery and Its Legacy

• 11/04--TAKE-HOME EXAM #2 DUE (no class)
• 11/06--Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Lynching of Jube Benson (online).
  Begin Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

Week Twelve

• 11/09--VIDEO: Frankenstein (1931 film; 70 min.).
  Begin Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

• 11/11--VIDEO: Frankenstein (1931 film; 70 min.).
  Continue reading Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 11/13--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

Week Thirteen

• 11/16--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 11/18--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 11/20--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

Week Fourteen

• 11/23--Richard Wright, Native Son--finish.
• 11/25--11/27--Thanksgiving Break (no class)

Week Fifteen

• 11/30--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 12/02--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 12/04--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.

Week Sixteen

• 12/07--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
  TAKE-HOME EXAM #3 ASSIGNED--due 12/14 or 12/15.
• 12/09--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 12/11--Toni Morrison, Beloved--finish.

FINAL: Take-Home Exam #3--due Mon., Dec. 14 or Tues., Dec. 15 (no class)

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