HISTORY OF ENGLISH CULTURE

The main objective of this course is to familiarize students with the evolution and the revival of the Gothic genre as a powerful literary form from the late 1930s to the 21th century, focusing in particular on its postmodern and contemporary revisitations.
Students are expected to consolidate the critical and methodological skills achieved during the BA educational programme. They will be led to acquire new critical tools and subject-specific knowledge relating to the ways in which Gothic fiction often incorporates motifs and narrative strategies from the fantastic mode, the fairy tale, as well as trauma narratives.
Students are also encouraged to actively participate in classroom discussions in order to articulate and defend positions, consider different points of view, and evaluate evidence.
This English-taught course is part of the JOINT DEGREE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES, an international educational programme, which offers motivated students the opportunity to attend some courses at a foreign partner university.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will hopefully learn to critically read novels, as well as to write a paper with coherent arguments and analytic interpretation. They will also be encouraged to draw connections between their own experiences of novels reading and critical theory.
In addition, at the end of this course students should have attained an awareness of the evolution of the Gothic genre, of its most relevant cultural and social contexts, its connection to the traditions of fantasy and fairy-tales, and finally how Gothic forms relates to Postmodernism and trauma studies.

Students are required to possess a good degree of proficiency in both written and spoken English.
They are also expected to have some familiarity with 20th century English literature, as well as with the core stylistic features of Modernism and Postmodernism.

Title: Gothic and Trauma Narratives
This course aims to provide a survey of the development and evolution of the literary Gothic from the late 1930s to the Twenty-first Century. A transgressive genre, the Gothic is a dynamic type of literature, which reflects what is most active and changing in the cultural developments of the times in which it is written. It encompasses most of fantastic fiction under a unifying theme: a preoccupation with fear. The close reading of the texts will show how Gothic imagery and conventions – the irrational, suspense, and horror – are deployed to explore a variety of issues relating to: morbid retroactive jealousy (Rebecca); gender relationships and feminine sexuality (The Bloody Chamber); youthful malaise, mourning work, and psychic visions (The Cement Garden; Don’t Look Now); environmental catastrophe (The Birds); Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the horrors of the Vietnam war (Trauma).

Primary sources

D. Du Murier, REBECCA (1938) with an Aferward by S. Bauman, Virago, 2003;
D. Du Murier, “The Birds” (1952); “Don’t Look Now” (1971) any edition
A. Carter, THE BLOODY CHAMBER and OTHER STORIES (1984), with an Introduction by H. Simpson, Vintage, 2006.
E. McEwan, THE CEMENT GARDEN (1978)
P. McGrath, TRAUMA (2007)

Secondary Sources:
M. Vanon Alliata, “Haunted Minds: Studies in the Gothic and Fantastic Imagination”, Verona: Ombre corte, 2017, pp. 11-29 (“Introduction”);

“The Encyclopedia of the Gothic”, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. pp. 112-8 (A. Carter); pp. 209-213 (D.Du Maurier), pp. 435-438 (P. McGrath);

B. Nicol, “The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction”, Cambridge: CUP, 2009, pp. 1-49.

A. Day, “Angela Carter: the Rational Glass”, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 1997, pp. 132-66;

D. Malcom, “Understanding Ian McEwan”, Columbia: University of South Caroline Press, 2002, pp. 1-19; pp. 45-65.

Additional readings for non-attending students:

J. E. Hogle, “Introduction”, in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 1-20;

J. G. Voller, “The Supernatural”, in “The Encyclopedia of the Gothic”, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 660-63;

A.Horner, S. Zlosnik, Daphne Du Maurier: Writing, Identity and the Gothic, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, pp. 98-127;

"Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale", ed. by Danielle M. Roemer and Cristina Bacchilega, Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 2001;

Megan M. Quigley, “Ian McEwan.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp.436-39;

H. Meyers, “Misogyny”, in “The Encyclopedia of the Gothic”, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 448-50;

D. Wallace, “Female Gothic” in “The Encyclopedia of the Gothic”, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 231-6;

A. Chromik, “Vampire Fiction”, in “The Encyclopedia of the Gothic”, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 707-718;

D. Kerler, “Trauma and the (Im) Possibility of Representation: Patrick McGrath’s Trauma”, Culture, Language and Representation, 2013, pp. 83-98;

I. Kacandes, "Trauma Theory", in Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London and New York: 2010, pp. 615-19.

Students will be assessed by a final written exam in English consisting of:

1) one open question;
2) a critical analysis of three passages drawn from the works indicated in the primary sources;
3) a short translation from English into Italian.

Non-native English speakers are not requested to do the translation, but to write a critical analysis of the given passage.

Front lectures, class discussions, and occasional lectures by renowned scholars.
The course is taught in English

English

Class attendance is not mandatory but is highly recommended.
As far as the examination is concerned, make sure that your answers are structured logically, that you write clearly and legibly, paying attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation. The level of linguistic knowledge will be also part of the assessment. The use of bilingual dictionaries in the examination is prohibited.

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