Sample Syllabus 1: An Introduction to American Literature
This class is designed as a themed American Literature survey class. Each unit is very roughly historical, but some include texts by contemporary authors that are inspired by or
thematically similar to the historical texts; often, a canonical American text is paired with a more obscure genre one. I have used these “mash-ups” with some success, particularly pairing Robert W. Chambers' “The Yellow Sign” and “The Repairer of Reputations” with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” This gives a better picture of the cultural issues the with which the works are concerned. Each unit should take a week, and the units will roughly
correspond to a 15-16 week semester. Optionally, more theoretical/critical texts, such as the ones I discuss in “Chapter 3: Teaching Horror,” can be included or substituted for some of the primary texts here. Substituting more theoretical/critical texts may be an option where some of the
primary texts I list here are of limited availability.
Course Description:
An introduction to American authors from the Colonial period to the present. Horror is the focus. We will learn about and explore various cultural and historical contexts in American literature by examining our collective fears and how they have changed and continue to change.
Learning Outcomes:
define key literary terms/concepts and implement these in oral/written discussion as well as in literary interpretation
analyze literature and explain how various components of literature work together to create meaning.
apply writing and revision as tools for understanding literature and its interpretation recognize and describe American literary history as chronological, developmental
(moving through time periods), and generic/thematic
recognize and interpret relationships between American literature and its literary history and culture
Unit 1: Get Out While You Can
Excerpts from H.P. Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in Literature and Stephen King’s Danse Macabre
Unit 2: “Those Philistines of Hell are upon You”: Early American Horror, or: There’s Something Weird About New England
Cotton Mather, Memorable Providences; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” ; Stephen King, “Jerusalem's Lot”; Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Unit 3: Death, Insanity or Some Combination Thereof
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”; H.P. Lovecraft, “Cool Air”
Videos: “CoolAir” and “The Dead Man” from Night Gallery Robert W. Chambers, “The Yellow Sign” and “The Repairer of Reputations”; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
Unit 4: Nameless Horrors, and Why We Should Maybe Just Stay Away From New: England
Ambrose Bierce, “The Damned Thing”and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
John Shirley, “Occurrence at Owl Street Ridge”
Peter Straub’s intro to H.P. Lovecraft: Tales; “The Hound”; “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”; “The Call of Cthulhu”; “The Colour out of Space”
Unit 5: Murder. More Insanity.
Richard Connell, “The Most Dangerous Game”; Joe Lansdale, “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road”; William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”; Flannery O'Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Unit 6: The Dead Walk, and They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara
Richard Matheson, I Am Legend; Richard Greene, “The Badness of Undeath”
Video: George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead Unit 7: Blood Loss is Bad, or: More Reasons to Avoid New England
Stephen King, 'Salem’s Lot and “One For the Road”
Unit 8: Look, More Vampires!, or: There’s Something Weird About New Orleans Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
Unit 9: The Night He Came Home Video: Friday the 13th Video: Halloween
Unit 10: Lovecraft and Chambers Redux
Karl Edward Wagner, “The River of Night’s Dreaming”; James Blish, “More Light”
T.E.D. Klein, “Black Man with a Horn”; “Nadelman’s God”
Unit 11: Splatterpunks, Goths, Yet More Vampires, again with the New Orleans Poppy Z. Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood”; David J. Schow, “Dusting the Flowers”; Pat Cadigan, “The Power and the Passion”; Excerpt from Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero, Douglas Winter, “Less Than Zombie”; Selections from Ellis, The Informers
Unit 12: Lovecraft Redux Redux
Thomas Ligotti, “The Last Feast of Harlequin”; “Gas Station Carnivals”; Caitlín R. Kiernan, “Postcards From The King of Tides”,“Rats Live On No Evil Star”, “In The Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)”; “So Runs the World Away”
Unit 13: And You Thought We Were Finished with Vampires? Wrong! Video: The Hamiltons
Video: 30 Days of Night
Unit 14: Docu-horror, or Maybe They Should Put Down the Cameras and Run Video: The Blair Witch Project
Video: Cloverfield
Unit 15: They're Coming to Get You Again, Barbara Video: Clips from The Walking Dead Video: Quarantine
Suggested background reading for instructors:
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Print.
Frost, Laura. “Black Screens, Lost Bodies: The Cinematic Apparatus of 9/11 Horror.” Horror after 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror. Eds. Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller. Austin: U of Texas P, 2011. 13-39. Print.
Morgan, Jack. The Biology of Horror. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2002. Print.
Suggested assignment ideas:
Research Paper: Why do monsters appear so often in literature? What purposes do they serve? Are they always metaphors, and if so, how do they change over time?
Class Discussion: Caitlίn Kiernan has said that one good mystery is worth a thousand solutions. Many of the texts in this class resist one interpretation. Share personal experiences that have no rational explanation. Everyone has one!
Writing Exercise: Often, the end of a horror story has an unbelievable (“The creature is chewing my face off even as I write this!”) or unsatisfying (Okay, what just happened?) ending. Choose one of the texts from this class and write your own ending.
Essay: Analyze one or more of the theories of horror from the readings, or find others through research and analyze them. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these theories? Can you add your own theories of fear?
Sample Syllabus 2: Special Topics--Beowulf's Legacy
Beowulf has inspired a surprising number of speculative fiction texts; a course charting this influence could be a good special topics literature class. Alternatively, the units here could be parsed and imported into other classes on fantasy, science fiction, or horror. This class is divided into seven units, each of which should span about two weeks of class time, leaving some leeway in the schedule for a typical 15-16 week course.
Course Description:
Rather than focus on Beowulf exclusively, this course will explore the often indirect influence of the poem in popular culture, as well as its numerous direct adaptations.
Learning Outcomes:
Analyze the messages in popular culture texts, both in print and film.
Explain the significance/impact of popular culture texts and their connections to canonical texts.
Exercise written, oral, and critical thinking skills.
Develop research skills and the ability to evaluate and synthesize sources.
Unit 1: Foundations
Beowulf
J.R.R. Tolkien, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"and The Hobbit Unit 2: Real or not?
Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead
“Hunters Told of Swamp Attack” from The Augusta Chronicle, June 17, 2012