Where the Tide Ebbs and Flows (Lord Dunsany)Screening: Re-animator or From Beyond or Dagon or In the Mouth of Madness or The Dunwich Horror
The Hashish-Man (Lord Dunsany)
Selections from Artificial Paradises (Charles Baudelaire) (soon to be posted)
Pickman’s Model (H.P. Lovecraft)Week 4 (February 18):
The Call of Cthulhu (H.P. Lovecraft)
Seaton’s Aunt (Walter de la Mare)Screening: Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourner, 1957)
Casting the Runes (M.R. James)
The Wendigo (Blackwood)Week 6 (March 4):The Signal-man (Dickens)
The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
The Damned Thing (Bierce)Screening: The Last Winter (Larry Fessenden, 2006)
TBA (Bierce)
Selections from The Devil’s Dictionary (Bierce)
The Great God Pan (Machen)Screening: The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
The Horla (de Maupassant)SPRING BREAK (March 23-27)
Week 9 (April 1):
The Jolly Corner (Henry James)Final Project Proposal Due
The Last of the Valerii (Henry James)
The Daemon Lover (Shirley Jackson) (not available)Screening: Images (Robert Altman, 1972) or Marat/Sade (Peter Brook, 1968)
TBA (Jackson)
The Company of Wolves (Angela Carter)
The White People (Arthur Machen)Screening: Season of the Witch (aka Hungry Wives) (George Romero, 1972)
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SYLLABUS
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The Finer Heinous Things Club, a Horror DeCal:
Supernatural and Occult Literature of the 19th to mid-20th Century
Spring 2009
English 98/198
Facilitators: Julius Banzon, Laura Van Alstine, Melissa Bashardoust
Faculty Sponsor: Prof. Julia Bader
General Info: This is a one (1) unit P/NP class. Class will be 2 hours, 1 day a week.
Course Description:
Do you derive a strange sort of pleasure, a perverse sort of edification, or any sort of invigoration of mind, soul, or body part when engaging yourself with the most ghastly, strange, horrific, and chilling works of fine art and literature? Then congratulations! You’re a horror fan!
The goal of this course is to provide a forum for the discussion of the art, substance, and pleasures in the horror genre. This semester the curriculum will focus on the reading and appreciation of the antiquarian joys of 19th to mid-20th century horror literature.
The planned course curriculum will look at the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Edward Plunkett (‘Lord’) Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Henry James, Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant, Walter De La Mare, and Shirley Jackson. We will discuss other authors as well, like Charles Dickens, M.R. James, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The opportunity will be granted for the integration of other horror writers (of pre-contemporary time) into your coursework (this could range from Poe to Shakespeare, Dante to Bronte). Also, extended reading of any featured author’s body of work outside the assigned stories is definitely encouraged and we will allow you to do your assignments on them.
A film inspired by or directly adapted from the work of the authors covered will be screened every other week.
The class will be dedicated to looking at these works as pieces of literature. An appreciation of writing style, technique, and the compelling use of the English language will be a Primary Goal. Highfalutin vocabulary and labyrinthine syntax will ideally be inquired into and unpacked during our close-reading – in a casual, non-technical way (those averse to linguistics need not worry).
The Ultimate Primary Goal will be to zero in on the arcane, esoteric pleasure that can be derived from this narrative genre and from the dense, verbose, insightful way these writers make their horror/macabre fiction elevated works of artistic merit. Supplementary scholarly texts will be handed out during section or linked to online to further allow unlocking of this genre’s social and historical reflections.
Class Structure:
Non-screening class (2 hours):
A non-screening class will begin with forty minutes (includes Berkeley time) of non-lecture. This can either be silent reading (fun), in-class “out-loud” reading, grouped discussion, or, at the facilitator’s discretion, short clip watching. The first three options will be decided between via online poll prior to class.
The next hour and twenty minutes will be lecture and full-class discussion, in which academic essays will be looked at and close re-reading of the stories will occur.
Screening class (3 hours max):
10-20 minutes (not including Berkeley time) of lecture and full class discussion prior to screening. Film will then be screened, depending on the length of the film. Time for a follow-up discussion at the end of the film can hopefully be arranged and allotted.
Reading & Required Texts:
Texts will be assigned weekly, but the majority of them will be short stories, so the texts should be short and, ideally, very sweet. Read by candlelight at twilight hours, or take Lovecraft to the beachside on an overcast day! Leisure will be greatly encouraged (just don’t make us NP you – see breakdown of Assignments and Grading below).
Most (likely all) of the short stories to be read are actually available online, but if you enjoy having a book in your hand, the seeking out of texts in printed form is also encouraged. Your facilitators would be glad to assist you. Many of the stories can also be found in the anthology book The Colour Out of Space: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Blackwood, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird, ed. D. Thin.
Assignments and Grading:
This class will be graded on a Pass/Not Pass system and those who pass will be rewarded with 1 unit of either 98 or 198 in the English Department. The grade will be based upon the following:
Attendance – 35% – Attendance is mandatory. You will be allowed 3 absences, a 4th will result in a NP. Roll will be taken at the beginning of each class.
Participation – 10% - Participation in discussion is what will make this course fun and engaging. Please do so. The size of the class will likely determine the exact format of classroom dynamic, but whatever that may be, make sure snacking is quiet and please be respectful to your peers and facilitators.
Homework Assignments – 20% –You will be required to turn in 3 assignments during the semester.
3 of those assignments will be a 2-3 page written paper pertaining to the material, but it is open to be either an analytic response paper or a creative piece inspired by the material. You may turn them in at any time, at any frequency.
The Term Project – 35% – You will be responsible for submitting a final thesis paper/project on the last day of class. Like the homework assignments (but larger in scale), it will be open ended and you will submit project proposals sometime into the semester. Likely it will be able to be really anything of creative or academic merit. Common options would be an epic 5-7 page thesis paper, an epic art project, or an epic group presentation.
