Professor: Ulrick Casimir
4 credits
In many ways, this new colloquium is an exploration of the “weird” and the frightening—we will spend the term looking into the thematics and mechanics of narratives that are fully meant to horrify, stun, and even disgust their readers and viewers. So if you choose to stop reading this course description now, like right now, then I totally understand … though I do hope that you’ve kept reading, and that you perhaps choose to join this creeping sojourn into the kind of story-worlds that will most definitely tend to live in our heads rent-free.
Our readings for the term will span the 17th century through the 21st and range widely in terms of audience and appeal (much what we will be looking at is often considered “genre” fiction/film). Primary written texts will include a smattering of longer works by classic authors of “weird tales” (such as H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Stephen Graham Jones, Iain Banks), as well as shorter pieces (Mary Wilkins Freeman, Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu). We will also look at shorter works by prominent contemporary authors who continue to produce in this vein (Nathan Ballingrud, Antonia Crane, Lindsay Hunter).
Narrative films (about one per week) may potentially include any of the following—this still-evolving list is meant to give you a sense of what you’re in for: John Waters’s Pink Flamingos (1972), Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (1979), Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (1992), David Cronenberg’s Crash (1997), Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer (2001), Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), and Cam Evrenol’s Baskin (2015). Note that we may also discuss TV episodes (Black Mirror, for instance) on occasion. Secondary texts will include short critical essays specifically selected to provide context and prompt in-class conversation; we’ll also look at brief selections from longer non-narrative works (Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film; Rachel Herz’s That's Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion). Coursework includes social-annotation assignments, a research proposal, an annotated bibliography, and a research paper of 12-15 pages.