What is any Gothic text? Overwrought emotion, death, black magic, suspense, gore, tyrannical patriarchy? African American Gothic is its own genre which reads much like the traditional Gothic text, only its true horrors make it much more than the average supernatural mythical read. Instead, texts within the African American Gothic genre rewrite Gothic conventions due to their very real depictions of horror and evil, most commonly a result of very intense, historical race relations in the United States. Simply put, some African American Gothic tropes include: howls from whipped slaves, fear from footsteps following too closely behind, hapless slave girls chased by monstrous massas, blood sucking viruses of black inferiority, and the doubled and mirrored Other of the uncanny, monster that is the black Self.
2. What are the goals of this course?
Simply put, the goals of this course can be summed in the following bullet points:
- Come to an understanding of what "African American Gothic" is and what definition means to scholars, society, Black literature, and the African American experience.
- Recognize the importance that race, class, gender, sex, nationality, ethnicity, age, and age have on African American Gothic texts.
- Identify ways in which African American Gothic texts rewrite traditional Gothic conventions and why.
- Analyze the problematic and limiting issues in adapting traditional Gothic motifs as well as the transnational implications of such adaptations.
Psychoanalysis, critical race studies, and post-colonial theory will be the most commonly referenced, though it is unfair to rule out the plethora of theory that influences literature. Issues of class, sex, gender, culture, race, and language are perhaps most common amongst Black literature, and African American Gothic literature is no exception.
4. There's a lot of texts on that list. Which ones are expected to be read?
This course serves as a broad overview to the genre, much like any other literature course focused on a genre. American, British, African American, Renaissance, Working Class, Feminist, Cultural, etc. literature courses typically provide a survey of texts that portray canonical literature. This course will follow much of the same route. Providing a plethora of Gothic texts allows for the seeds to be planted for future scholarly writing, research, or other miscellaneous academic interests, all while providing the needed contextual evidence for a growing field of study in this particular genre.
5. What types of writing will be incorporated?
The expectation is within writing to learn. In other words, the creation of original texts (whether these be short videos, poems, short stories, articles, illustrations/advertisements, or scholarly essays [for example]) will provided the tools necessary to come to an understanding on what the "African American Gothic" is. In addition, there will be reflection papers to synthesize a complete understanding of the texts and the body's response to them. Writing will occur at least every class meeting, whether it be a few sentences or a fully engaging, heavily revised, analytical essay. There will also be other opportunities to challenge rhetoric, whether it be within the African American Gothic texts themselves, the Gothic as it has been known by Anglo authors, theories that inform the Gothic, or theories that inform Africanist perspectives.
6. How will the texts be taught?
The primary goal of the course is for students to come to their own understanding of what "African American Gothic" is and what it means to them not only as scholars, but also as contributing members of society. With this in mind, and since the course is grounded in Afrocentric reading, the text themselves will serve as individual moments of a particular time. As such, there will be a strong emphasis on teaching historical backgrounds and critical thinking about history and time and how these two elements interact with literature, Black studies, and the African American experience.
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