First Year Studies
Dark Museum: From British Castles to Latin American Gothic Imagination
María Negroni
mnegroni@slc.edu
Tweed LR
M-Th 2pm-3:25pm
Course description
Gothic stories, usually linked in people’s imagination to B-movies and best sellers of all times (Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera, The Golem, Frankenstein, Edgar A. Poe’s short stories, Carmilla, Blade Runner, The Castle of Otranto, Jekyll & Hyde, Metropolis, The Turn of the Screw, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Psycho, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Rapaccini’s Daughter, Aliens, or The Bloody Countess) are all, despite their intense individuality, unending variations on a single subject, mainly the relation between sexuality (the body, the material) and Death.
Accordingly, the scenarios where these Gothic sagas take place are solitary and archaic places: castles, rundown mansions, and the like. As if a sublime geography and scenery, subdued by awe and despair, were crucial for the display of emotions, that is for the apparition of the unconscious, the hidden otherness of “evil”. Gothic “monsters”, on the other hand, constitute a strange gallery of unwanted and/or orphaned characters, usually artists fixated on desire and sexual fears.
In this course, we will explore, through literary texts and films, both the North American and European “classics” and the wonderful contributions of Latin American writers to the Gothic “canon”, while drawing a possible portrait of the artist/poet as a deprived child who obssessively yearns for the Impossible and in so doing, becomes an intruder into the sexual politics of the symbolic. In other words, we will use Gothic literature to discuss Aesthetics, mainly the relation between beauty and mourning, loss and desire, death and forbidden drives. We will also carefully review supporting arguments, found both in literary and philosophical texts: Giorgio Agamben, Susan Sontag, Charles Baudelaire, and Julia Kristeva, among others.
The ultimate objective will be to consolidate, increase, and refine oral and written expression, with a special focus on the main aspects of scholarly researching. We will also do work on the web board and search the Internet. Students will meet individually with the teacher to further discuss projects and assignments. Weekly film screenings will also be an integral and mandatory part of the course.
Objectives
In this class, we will examine novels, poems and short stories, as well as
films, concerned with the emergence, influence and variations of the Gothic
sensibility.
The seminar nature of this course will become visible in the integration of
a theoretical reflection with critical practice. Emphasis will be placed on
collective discussion and essay writing.
Organization of the course
This course will be divided in two parts:
I. First Semester: we will examine some of the most well known “classic”
Gothic texts and films, in order to identify the main topics of the “genre”.
II. Second Semester, we will study the Latin American texts where Gothic influences
can be traced.
In each block will concentrate on a group of books and films, which will be thoroughly discussed in class.
Requisites
The students will be expected to comply with the following work:
Reading of the literature books and the theoretical texts, indicated in class.
Participating in the seminar, including timely class, and conference and film
screening attendance, as well as thoughtful contributions to our collective
discussions. All classroom, screenings and conference attendance are MANDATORY.
Lateness of more than fifteen minutes will be counted as absences. Except in
cases of emergency or a full 24 hours notice, THERE WILL BE NO RESCHEDULING
OF MISSED CONFERENCES.
Writing thoughtful responses to class readings. These thought pieces will be
discussed in class and during conference meetings, if necessary. While they
need not be models of perfection, these short essays should be clearly written,
free of spelling and grammatical errors, and typed.
Completing all the written assignments indicated in class.
Participating in a 20-30 minute presentation about a topic related to the course.
Completing a conference project.
Completing a worksheet
Contributing to the web page.
There will be two tests each semester.
There will be two papers due at the end of each semester: the conference paper
and the course paper. (length to be announced)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
No one should have any trouble receiving full credit for the course, but I
reserve the right to deduct credit under any of the following circumstances:
--All assignments (and corrections) not turned in
--Three classes and/or conferences missed
--Conference project not completed
Please note: During the first semester, on the Mondays listed below, students will meet at the Film Viewing Room, from 5,30 until 7pm until 3,30 pm to watch the following 14 films.
The fall of the House of Usher.
Nosferatu.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Psycho.
The Phantom of the Opera.
The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
The Night of the Hunter.
Mary Reilly.
Der Golem.
Frankenstein.
Metropolis.
Blade Runner.
Alien 3.
Citizen Kane.
First Semester
Texts
Primary Texts:
Edgar Allan Poe. Short Stories.
Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla.
Henry James. The Turn of the Screw.
Bronte, Emily. Jane Eyre.
Polidori. The Vampire. A Tale.
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rappacini’s Daughter.
Théa von Harbou. Metropolis.
Julia Kristeva. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholy.
Susan Sontag: Under the Sign of Saturn.
Secondary Texts:
Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera.
Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein.
Meyrink, Gustav. The Golem.
Ibsen, Henrik. Peer Gynt.
du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca.
Martin, Valerie. Mary Reilly.
Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Beckford, William. Vathek.
Dinesen, Isak.Seven Gothic Tales.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androides dream of Eletric Sheep.
Penrose, Valentine. The Bloody Countess.
Kafka, Franz. The Castle.
Maturin, Charles. Menmoth the Wanderer.
Lewis, Matthew Gregory. The Monk.
Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto.
Andersen, Hans Christian. The Snow Queen.
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.
Wilde, Oscar. The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Wells, H.G. The Time Machine.
Shelley, Percy. The Cenci.
Critical Bibliography:
Bloom, Harold. Franz Kafka’s The Castle. Oxford University Press 1988.
Bloom, Harold. “Prometheus Rising: The Backgrounds of Romantic Poetry”,
in Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry, Cornell Universiy
Press 1971.
Jones, Stephen. The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide. Titan Books 1993.
De Lamotte, Eugenia. Perils of the Night. A Feminist Study of 19th Century Gothic.
Oxford University Press 1990.
Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley, her Life, her Fiction, her Monsters. Routledge
1988.
Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness. A Poetics of Gothic. University of Chicago
Press 1995.
Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein’s Shadow. Myth, Montruosity and 19th Century
Writing. Clarendon Press 1987.
Amstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction. A Political History of the Novel.Oxford
University Press 1987.
Ellis, Kate F. The Contested Castle. Gothic Novels and The Subversion of Domestic
Ideology.University of Illinois Press 1989.
Gilbert/ Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the 19th Century
Literary Imagination.Yale University Press 1979.
Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. Routledge 1995.
Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. University of Chicago Press 1995.
Negroni, María. Museo Negro. Grupo Editorial Norma, Buenos Aires 1999.
Silver/ Ursini. More Things that are Dreamt of, First Limelight Edition, 1994.
Starobinski, Jean. La mélancolie au miroir, Juilliard 1989.
Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony, Oxford University Press 1970.
Sade, Marquis de, “Reflections on the Novel”, in The 120 Days of Sodom
and Other Writings, Grove Press, 1966.
Spector, Robert Donald. The English Gothic: A Bibliographic Guide to Writers
from Horace Walpole to Mary Shelley, Greenwood Press 1984.
Hirsch, Foster. “The Cinematic Background: From Expressionism to Neo-Realism”
in The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, De Capo Press 2001.
Stewart, susan, “Objects of Desire” in On Longing: Narratives of the
Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Duke University Press
1993.
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, Routledge 2002.
Moi, Toril. The Kristeva Reader. Columbia University 1986.
Jones, Ann Rosalind. “Julia Kristeva on Feminity: The Limits of a Semiotic
Politics” and “Writing the Body: Toward and Understanding of l’ecriture
feminine” in Writing on the Body, Columbia University Press 1997.
Kearney, Richard. “Evil, Monstrosity and the Sublime” in Strangers,
Gods and Monsters: Ideas of Otherness, Routlege 2002.
Clemens, Valdine, “Epilogue: Alien and the Future of Gothic” and “The
Descent of Man and the Anxiety of Upward Mobility: the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde”, in The Return of the Repressed, SUNY 1997.
Foucault, Michel. “The Father’s No” in Aesthetics, Methods and
Epistemology, The New Press 1984.
First Semester
Program (subject to change)
BLOCK I.
Castles and Water: Philosophy of Furniture
September 8.
Introduction.
September 11.
The Gothic Sensibility.
Discussion of the introduction to The English Gothic: A Bibliographic Guide
to Writers from Horace Walpole to Mary Shelley, by Robert Donald Spector.
September 15.
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Written assingment: “What makes Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the
House of Usher a gothic story?”
Film Viewing Room: “The Fall of the House of Usher”
September 18.
Polidori: The Vampire. A Tale
María Negroni in Istambul.
Written assignment: “Comment on the aesthetics of Roger Corman’s film
“The fall of the House of Usher” in comparison to Poe’s short
story”.
BLOCK II.
Orphans, Vampires, Collectors
September 22.
Visit to the Library/ Maria Negroni in Istambul
Reading of the chapter “The Cinematic Background: From Expressionism to
Neo-Realism”, in Foster Hirsch, The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir.
Written assingment: “Comment on this quote by Edgar A.Poe: “I will not place the hero of my poem in a poor setting since poverty is trivial and contrary to the idea of beauty. His melancholy will have a magnificent house, poetically furnished.”
Film Viewing Room: Nosferatu
September 25.
Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla.
Written assignment: “Comment on the relationship between love and memory
in Carmilla”.
September 29.
Gender Troubles:
Nosferatu, The Vampire and Carmilla.
Discussion of Sade: An Erotic Beyond, by Octavio Paz
Written assignment: Compare the film aesthetics of Corman’s “The Fall
of the House of Usher” and Murnau’s “Nosferatu”.
Film Viewing Room: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
BLOCK III.
Art, Eternity and Crime
October 2.
Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir,
the Collection.
Discussion of Film: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and The Phantom of the Opera.
Written assingment: “What is Captain Nemo searching for?”
During weekend: Watch Film on Reserve: The Phantom of the Opera.
October 6.
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Oval Portrait”
Honoré de Balzac: “The Unknown Masterpiece”.
Film Viewing Room: The Portrait of Dorian Gray
October 9.
Discussion of the article:”Prometheus Rising: The Backgrounds of Romantic
Poetry”, in Harold Bloom, Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic
Poetry.
Arthur Rimbaud. “Letter to Paul Demeny”
Charles Baudelaire’s poem “La Beauté”
Written assingment: “Could you identify any elements in common between
the figure of the Romantic poet and the figure of the Gothic hero?”
October 13.
Oscar Wilde: The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera.
Take-home exam.
Film Viewing Room: M
BLOCK IV.
Sexuality, Childhood and Death
October 16.
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw.
Film Viewing Room: The Night of the Hunter
:
October 20.
Study Days.
October 23.
Discussion of the chapter “Evil, Monstruosity and the Sublime”, in
Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Ideas of Otherness.
Discussion of films: The Night of the Hunter/M.
October 27.
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
Written assignment: “Discuss the question of “the double” in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre”.
Film Viewing Room: Malcolm Turvey’s Lecture on Expressionism.
October 30.
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer
and the 19th Century Literary Imagination, “A Dialogue of Self and Soul:
Plain Jane’s Progress”.
Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, “Hélene
Cixous: An Imaginary Utopia”.
Take-home exam.
BLOCK V
Science, Time and Dreams
November 3.
Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Rappacini’s Daughter.”
Written assingmen: Discuss the “pride of intellect” as sin in Hawthorne’s
“Rappacini’s Daughter”.
Film Viewing Room: Mary Reilly
November 6.
R.L. Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.
Discussion of article “The Descent of Man and the Anxiety of Upward Mobility:
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, by Valdine Clemens in The
Return of the Repressed.
Discussion of film: Mary Reilly
Written assingment: “Compare the film “Mary Reilly” to Robert
L.Stevenson’s novel”.
During weekend: Watch film on reserve Der Golem.
November 10.
Discussion of Film: Der Golem
Foucault, Michel, “The Father’s No” in Aesthetics, Methods and
Epistemology.
Written assingment: Discuss the oppositions evident in the film Der Golem
Film Viewing Room: Blade Runner
BLOCK VI
The City in Ruins
November 13.
Théa von Harbou: Metropolis (script)
Jorge Luis Borges: “The Circular Ruins”.
November 17.
The City in Ruins: Blade Runner.
Film Viewing Room: Metropolis
BLOCK VII
Technological Fears.
November 20.
Gotham City: Metropolis
November 24.
Technological Fears: Aliens.
Discuss article “Epilogue: Alien and the Future of Gothic” by Valdine
Clemens in The Return of the Repressed.
Film Viewing Room: Alien.
Thanksgiving.
BLOCK VIII
Poetry and the Aesthetics of the Gothic.
December 1
Toril Moi, The Kristeva Reader, “Revolution in Poetic Language”
Ann Rosalind Jones, Writing on the Body, “Julia Kristeva on Feminity: The
Limits of a Semiotic Politics”.
Film Viewing Room: Psycho.
December 4
Julia Kristeva: Black Sun. Depression and Melancholy.
December 8.
Susan Sontag: Under the Sign of Saturn.
Film Viewing Room: Citizen Kane.
December 11
Giorgio Agambem: Language and Death
December 15.
Students present conference projects.
December 18.
Students present conference projects.
Students submit end of term paper and conference paper. Second Semester
Course Program (subject to change)
January 22
Comments on 1st Semester papers.
Introduction to Second Semester:
Conferences, presentations (authors & leading discussions), webpage.
Reference books, reading materials, bookstore.
Some new rules: only one final (longer) conference paper.
January 26
Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre.
Introduction to Fantastic Literature in Latin America.
The Fantastic, “lo real maravilloso” and Magical Realism.
The Latin American Boom.
Carlos Fuentes (México): Aura
January 29
Carlos Fuentes (México): Aura and “The Doll Queen”
February 2
Silvina Ocampo (Argentina): “The Photographs”, “The Velvet Dress”,
“Icera”.
February 5
Silvina Ocampo: “The Doll”, “The House of Sugar”, “The
Clock House”.
February 9
Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina): “The Circular Ruins”, “The Golem”,
“Borges and Myself”, “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”.
Jorge Luis Borges on Nathaniel Hawthorne (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
William H.Gass on Jorge Luis Borges (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
February 12
Jorge Luis Borges: “The Secret Miracle”, “The Garden of Forking
Paths”, “The Two Kings and Their Two Labyrinths”.
Special Activity: Monday February 12th we will meet with Professor Leah Olson (Biology) and her FYS class to discuss 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from the literay and scientific points of view. Oceanographer Amy Lessen (Pratt Institute) will lead the discussion.
February 16
Alejo Carpentier (Cuba): “Journey Back to the Source”
Alejo Carpentier on Herman Melville (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
Paul West on Alejo Carpentier ((Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
February 19
Julio Cortázar (Argentina): “House Taken Over”, “Circe”,
“Continuity of Parks”
Julio Cortázar on Edgar Allan Poe (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
Robert Coover on Julio Cortázar ((Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
February 23
Rubén Darío (Nicaragua): “The Death of the Empress of China”.
Juan José Arreola (México): “The Switchman”, “Baby
HP”, “Announcement”, “You and I”.
February 26
Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina): “The Bloody Countess”
Take-home exam # 1.
March 1
Joao Guimaraes Rosa (Brazil): “The Third Bank of the River”.
Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay): “Unborn”
John Updike on Augusto Roa Bastos (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
Special Activity: On Wednesday March 3, 5:30 We’ll see Orson Welles’s version of “Jane Eyre” at the Film Forum, Manhattan.
March 4
Virgilio Piñera (Cuba): “Meat”
Augusto Monterroso (México): “The Dinosaur”
Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay): “The Threshold”
March 8
Clarice Lispector (Brazil): “The Crime of the Mathematics Professor”,
“Love”
Grace Paley on Clarice Lispector (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
Nélida Piñón (Brazil): “The Warmth of Things”
March 11
Horacio Quiroga (Argentina): “The Decapitated Chicken”, “The
Dead Man”
Spring Break
April 1
Juan Rulfo (México): “Luvina”
Rosario Ferré (Puerto Rico): “When Women Love Men”
April 5
Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia): “A Very Old Man with Enormous
Wings”, “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship”
Gabriel García Márquez on William Faulkner (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
Thomas Pynchon on Gabriel García Marquez ((Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
April 8
Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina): The Invention of Morel
April 12
Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Invention of Morel
April 15
Leopoldo Lugones (Argentina): “Viola Acherontia”, “Yzur”
April 19
Felisberto Hernández (Uruguay): “The Daisy Dolls”
April 22
Santiago Dabove (Argentina): “Being Dust”
Armonía Somers (Uruguay): “Waiting for Polidoro”
April 26
Reynaldo Arenas (Cuba): “Bestial Among the Flowers”
April 29
Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay): “The Image of Misfortune”
Juan Carlos Onetti on Vladimir Nabokov (Stavans, Mutual Impressions)
May 3
José Bianco (Argentina): The Rats
May 6
Field Trip to María Negroni’s appartment
Take-home exam # 2
May 10
Marco Denevi (Argentina): “The Redemption of the Cannibal Woman”
Macedonio Fernández (Argentina): “Tantalia”
May 13
Students present conference projects.
May 17
Students present conference projects.
May 20
Last day of classes. General Review.
List of Films Second Semester
Jan 26—Carlos Fuentes. Interview
Feb 2—Jorge Luis Borges. Interview
Feb 9 – Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Feb 16— Kiss of the Spider Woman
Feb 23— The Official Story/Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
March 1— Alejandra Pizarnik.
March 3— Special Activity. Orson Welles’ version of Jane Eyre. Film
Forum,
Manhattan.
March 8—The Hour of the Star/ Black Orpheus
March 29— Our Lady of the Assasins
April 5— Eréndira
April 12— City of God/Pixote
April 19— Before Night Falls
April 26— Amores Perros
May 3— A Place Called Chiapas