Female Gothic

In 1976 Ellen Moers claimed that there existed not only a genre called Gothic, but also a subgenre she called “Female Gothic,” which gives voice to a persecuted female protagonist. We will read American prose texts in the female dark mode following the British authors Ann Radcliffe or Mary Shelley until today.

Andrew Smith and Diana Wallace insist on the importance of the Gothic genre for today’s transgressive writers, be they African American such as Toni Morrison, Canadian like Margaret Atwood, or, in the following quote, lesbian: ”The growth of ‘lesbian Gothic’ fiction over the past 25 years [...] developed out of a specific historical context – the feminist movement and the growth of lesbian/queer studies, which in turn created a readership for texts which appropriated, reworked and parodied Gothic modes and motifs to articulate lesbian subjectivities.”

(http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/TheFemaleGothic-ThenNow.pdf) This is not only true for print texts, but for other mediums as well: films as well as tv series make use of the transgressive potential of the genre.

Be prepared to read theory and to do close readings of troubling texts!

The theory will be made use of in an extensive group presentation. Each group will design their own project which will be introduced, discussed, and developed cooperatively, with the whole seminar group.

In addition, there will be film screening sessions on some Tuesdays starting at 4:00 p.m. which are obligatory.