Media, film, theatre: Southern Gothic

Southern Gothic

The main aim of the seminar is to explore a selection of texts classified as Southern Gothic in the context of American cultural and literary history. Beginning with Edgar Allan Poe and culminating with Toni Morrison, the seminar combines a close reading of literary texts with mapping out of their transmedial afterlives in old and new media.

Southern Gothic

Week 1: Introduction (syllabus, requirements, logistics, etc.). Key concepts: The American South, Gothic, Southern Gothic. Characteristics of Southern Gothic. Introduction to the selected authors and texts.

Week 2: Transmedia storytelling. Theory and practice.

Week 3: Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) – discussion of the text

Week 4: Reinventions of “The Fall of the House of Ushe” across media (film, video, blog, etc.)

Week 5: William Faulkner (1897–1962) “A Rose for Emily” (1930) – discussion of the text

Week 6: Mapping out transmedial afterlives of “A Rose for Emily”

Week 7: Carson McCullers (1917–1967) The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951) – discussion of the text

Week 8: Discussion of the film adaptation of The Ballad of the Sad Café (1991) directed by Simon Callow

Week 9: Reassessment and refining of key concepts: Southern Gothic, Transmedia. An in-class test on the three texts and their adaptations discussed in previous weeks

Week 10: Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) “Parker's Back” (1965) – discussion of the text

Week 11: Tracing contexts of “Parker's Back”

Week 12: Toni Morrrison (1931–2019) Beloved (1987) – discussion of the text

Week 13: Mapping out authorial commentaries on Beloved.

Week 14: Discussion of the possibilities of sharing the results of students’ research in digital media (blogs, videos, comments, social media, etc.)

Week 15: Reassessment of Transmedia theory and practice. An essay on Southern Gothic literature in the context of transmedia is due.

Literary texts:

Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” http://www.cje.ids.czest.pl/biblioteka/7117936-A-Rose-for-Emily.pdf

McCullers, Carson. The Ballad of the Sad Café. https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/163729/The%20Ballad%20of%20the%20Sad%20Caf%C3%A9%20-%20Carson%20McCullers.pdf?sequence=1

Morrison, Toni. Beloved.

https://www.academia.edu/35729242/Beloved_Toni_Morrison_Vintage_International_2007_1_

O’Connor, Flannery. “Parker's Back.” https://jpcatholic.edu/NCUpdf/courses/HUMA122-ParkersBack.pdf.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” https://poestories.com/read/houseofusher.

Commentary:

Chaykin, Rachelle. “Southern Gothic Literature,” 10.04. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HwvpXvLZQM.

Freeman, Matthew, and Renira Rampazzo Gambarato, eds. The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies. Routledge, 2019. (Foreword, Introduction)

Street, Susan Castillo, and Charles L. Crow, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Palgrave, 2016.

Street, Susan Castillo, and Charles L. Crow, eds. Nineteenth-Century Southern Gothic Short Fiction: Haunted by the Dark. Anthem Press, 2020.

Tyminski “Southern Gothic.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RjWJMOuSQ

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On Poe’s tale, for example,

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe – Thug Notes Summary & Analysis. 20.09.2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJq013z5uQ

The Fall of the House of Usher animated with subtitles Edgar Allan Poe Read by Christopher Lee. 09.08.2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkXzGDcT46g

Assessment methods:

- short research projects (W1, W2)

- an in-class test, an essay (U1, U2)

- activity (K1, U1, U2)

Assessment criteria:

12 x 5 points for activity (short research projects and discussion of concepts, placing research results on the Internet).

2 x 20 points for an in-class test and an essay. Weeks: 9 and 15, respectively

fail 0- 59 pts (0-59 %)

satisfactory 60-69 pts (60-69 %)

satisfactory plus 70-75 pts (70-75 %)

good 76-85 pts (76-85 %)

good plus 86-90 pts (86-90 %)

very good 91-100 pts (91-100 %)

not applicable