If I were taking classes at your university, I would be salivating over this course. It sounds exactly narrow enough, so that you and your students really have time to get into the meat of the genre.
I once took a class in college called "Traversing the Wall: The Self and Other in Literature." All of the texts were East German written around the time of the wall coming down. Some were literally about wall-jumping, others were more metaphorical. The point of this long aside was that this specifically directed course was one of the best of my college career, because we had focus and time to explore.
This course you've constructed sounds the same. Plus it sounds like fun. I really hope you get a chance to teach it. (Fingers duly crossed).
It sounds exactly narrow enough, so that you and your students really have time to get into the meat of the genre.
Thank you. Seriously. I mean, I feel this way too, obviously, but it's so nice to have it corroborated. I don't think all courses should be so focused, but it *is* a topics course; I want it to really be a topics course, not just a survey course with a slight thematic slant. Plus: The Gothic! What's not to love? ...well, okay, maybe the creepy preoccupation with incest is not to love, but I think it's important to acknowledge English literature's long tradition of being deeply weird.
And I think that class on East German texts sounds completely fascinating. I bet I haven't read a single thing you covered in that class. Which text or two would you most recommend?
You know, I'm interested in the course myself for some of the same reasons. I found out a good bit about the Gothic writing a seminar paper on The Mysteries of Udolpho back in 1996, and included a significant Gothic presence on my preliminary examination reading list, but I've never had the chance to consider a large group of texts together, let alone to read up on recent critical developments (of which there have apparently been several since 1996). Teaching the class would give me the excuse to do both, plus 35 other people to prod my thinking along.
I'm dredging seriously old memories here (12 years of book reading makes those texts many many books ago). I tried to find the syllabus, but couldn't--maybe in my last move I finally got rid of some of those college papers.
That having been said, the two things I remember clearly are The Wall Jumper and Monika Maron. The Wall Jumper (could be with an s, Jumpers) was a matter of fact text--mixture of fiction and accounts the day-to-day life of people who lived on both sides of the wall. Monika Maron was an East German writer whose work was banned for a long time. The book we read for the class was called The Defector, about a woman who who decides to defect from her life, literally erasing herself from existence (hence the more metaphorical wall jumper). I liked the writing so much that I bought several of her books, of which the best was Silent Close (#6? #8? I can't remember the exact title). This story was more overtly political, dealing with neighbors who may or may not be members of the secret police. As I recall, she has
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I once took a class in college called "Traversing the Wall: The Self and Other in Literature." All of the texts were East German written around the time of the wall coming down. Some were literally about wall-jumping, others were more metaphorical. The point of this long aside was that this specifically directed course was one of the best of my college career, because we had focus and time to explore.
This course you've constructed sounds the same. Plus it sounds like fun. I really hope you get a chance to teach it. (Fingers duly crossed).
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Thank you. Seriously. I mean, I feel this way too, obviously, but it's so nice to have it corroborated. I don't think all courses should be so focused, but it *is* a topics course; I want it to really be a topics course, not just a survey course with a slight thematic slant. Plus: The Gothic! What's not to love? ...well, okay, maybe the creepy preoccupation with incest is not to love, but I think it's important to acknowledge English literature's long tradition of being deeply weird.
And I think that class on East German texts sounds completely fascinating. I bet I haven't read a single thing you covered in that class. Which text or two would you most recommend?
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That having been said, the two things I remember clearly are The Wall Jumper and Monika Maron. The Wall Jumper (could be with an s, Jumpers) was a matter of fact text--mixture of fiction and accounts the day-to-day life of people who lived on both sides of the wall. Monika Maron was an East German writer whose work was banned for a long time. The book we read for the class was called The Defector, about a woman who who decides to defect from her life, literally erasing herself from existence (hence the more metaphorical wall jumper). I liked the writing so much that I bought several of her books, of which the best was Silent Close (#6? #8? I can't remember the exact title). This story was more overtly political, dealing with neighbors who may or may not be members of the secret police. As I recall, she has ( ... )
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