230465 The Gothic in Fiction and Film (BS) (WiSe 2014/2015)

Associated with tropes of “imperilled heroines, dastardly villains, ineffectual heroes, supernatural events, dilapidated buildings and atmospheric weather”, the Gothic has become one of the most complex and vibrant genres in British literature to this day. This seminar will trace manifestations and transformations of the Gothic from its origins in the eighteenth century to rather recent developments in the late twentieth century. It will introduce students to central theoretical concepts associated with the Gothic tradition (such as the sublime, the uncanny and the abject) as well as to different historical and cultural contexts, in which the Gothic proved to be particularly popular. In the first part of the seminar, we will engage with a variety of canonical literary texts by Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James and Daphne du Maurier. In the second part of the seminar, we will analyse and interpret constructions of the Gothic in selected films. Please not that only those students who attend the first meeting will be permitted to enrol on the course. A reader will be provided.