Reading Schedule

Spring Semester 2012

MWF 1:00-1:50, Grubbs Hall 312

Pittsburg State University

Dr. K. Nichols: knichols11@cox.net

Week One

• 01/18--Introduction. Visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 101.

Dark Romantic Gothic

• 01/20--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 (online).

Week Two

• 01/23--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.
• 01/25--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) (online).
• 01/27--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--read 46 pages.

Week Three

• 01/30--Charles Brocken Brown, Wieland, or the Transformation--finish.
  PAPER #1 ASSIGNED (see online directions)-- due 02/10.
  Helpful term: Unreliable Narrator (online).
• 02/01--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 (online).
• 02/03--Edgar Allan Poe, "Ligeia" in The Gold-Bug and Other Tales.
  Helpful Term: Transformation/metamorphosis (online).

Week Four

• 02/06--Edgar Allan Poe, "The Black Cat" in The Gold-Bug and Other Tales.
• 02/08--VIDEO: The Black Cat (1934 film; 65 min.)
• 02/10--VIDEO: The Black Cat
  PAPER #1 DUE--4-5 pp.
  Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (online study text); listen to "The Raven" (audio); browse Gustave Doré Illustrations of "The Raven" (online)--make sure you click on "Lines Illustrated by Gustave Doré."

Week Five

• 02/13--VIDEO: "Rappaccini's Daughter" (55 min.)
  Read Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories.
  TAKE-HOME EXAM #1 ASSIGNED--due 02/20.
• 02/15--VIDEO: "Rappaccini's Daughter"
  Finish Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories.
• 02/17--Nathaniel Hawthorne, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories.

Week Six

• 02/20--TAKE-HOME EXAM #1 DUE (no class). Submit as an email attachment (.doc file or .rtf file), or slide a hard copy under my office door, Grubbs 450.

Female Gothic: The Bronte Influence

• 02/22--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 (online).
• 02/24--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--read 37 pages.

Week Seven

• 02/27--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--read 37 pages.
• 02/29--Henry James, The Turn of the Screw--finish.
• 03/02--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 (online).
  Begin reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--45 pp.
  PAPER #2 ASSIGNED (see online directions)--due 3/26.

Week Eight

• 03/05--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 (online).
  Continue reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--45 pp.
• 03/07--Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat (online).
  Continue reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--45 pages.
• 03/09--Sylvia Plath, poems (online). The Disquieting Muses; Pursuit; The Moon and the Yew Tree; Daddy; Lady Lazarus; In Plaster; Tulips (online).
  Continue reading Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House--45 pages.

Week Nine

Sci-Fi Gothic Cinema

• 03/12--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)
• 03/14--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)
• 03/16--VIDEO: Alien (1979 film; 117 min.)

Week Ten

• 03/19--SPRING BREAK
• 03/21--SPRING BREAK
• 03/23--SPRING BREAK

Week Eleven

Southern Gothic/Grotesque

• 03/26--PAPER #2 DUE--6-8 pp.
  William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily (online).
  Helpful Term: Southern Gothic (online).
  TAKE-HOME EXAM #2 ASSIGNED--due 4/2.
• 03/28--Flannery O'Connor, "The Displaced Person" in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.
  Helpful Term: Grotesque (online).
• 03/30--Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" or "Artificial Nigger" in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.

Week Twelve

• 04/02--TAKE-HOME EXAM #2 DUE (no class). Submit as an email attachment (.doc file or .rtf file), or slide a hard copy under my office door, Grubbs 450.

Racial Gothic: Slavery and Its Legacy

• 04/04--Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Lynching of Jube Benson (online).
  VIDEO: Frankenstein (1931 film; 70 min.).
  Begin reading Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 04/06--VIDEO: Frankenstein.
  Continue reading Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

Week Thirteen

• 04/09--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 04/11--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 04/13--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.

Week Fourteen

• 04/16--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 04/18--Richard Wright, Native Son--49 pp.
• 04/20--Richard Wright, Native Son--finish.

Week Fifteen

• 04/23--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 04/25--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 04/27--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.

Week Sixteen

• 04/307--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
  TAKE-HOME EXAM #3 ASSIGNED--due 5/7 (or 5/8).
• 05/02--Toni Morrison, Beloved--read 54 pages.
• 05/04--Toni Morrison, Beloved--finish.

FINAL: Take-Home Exam #3--due Mon., May 7 (or Tuesday May 8) (no class)

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