Gothic Literature Portal

Considered the first sci-fi novel, Frankenstein is much more than the famous monster who has entered pop culture. From philosophy to science, this novel deals with many issues, confuses the reader, and makes us wonder who the real hero is. We will discuss the themes, imagery, character development, and the many different allusions to other texts mentioned in the book in a relaxed and interactive way.

Two classics of Gothic literature wrestle with the problem of good and evil: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The former, a work of early science fiction, and the latter, a Faustian fantasy, both imagine a human psyche divided in two. In Stevenson’s tale, Dr. Jekyll attempts to isolate and contain the evil side of his nature, but creates a monster he cannot control. In Wilde’s “poisonous book,” Dorian enjoys seemingly eternal youth while his portrait suffers the physical and moral consequences of his wickedness —learning too late that, sooner or later (as the saying goes), we all get the face we deserve.

In examining this sinister pair of pairs, this course looks first at the text of each novel. Next, we survey the shock and alarm these books inspired among the Victorian public, as captured by a range of early reader responses. In their contrasting approaches to the same theme, both works reveal insights into the fragility of human identity, the limits of scientific understanding, and the dark power of artistic creation.

This is the Landing Page for Dr. Amy H. Sturgis's Haunting Tales series:

Module 1 explores the context and inspirations of the Gothic horror classic, The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson. We will consider its popular and critical receptions, its place in Shirley Jackson’s larger body of work, and its impact on contemporary readers.

Module 2 explore the challenges of the sequel or “inspired-by” work, A Haunting on the Hill (2023), by author Elizabeth Hand, both in its context as a response to The Haunting of Hill House and on its own merits. We will also consider how the novel fits into Elizabeth Hand’s larger body of writings and the ongoing relevance of the Gothic to 21st-century readers.

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Note: Students can jump in at any month/part of the Series. There are no prerequisites.

For the very first time, Shirley Jackson’s estate has authorized a book inspired by Shirley Jackson’s work. The 2023 novel A Haunting on the Hill by author Elizabeth Hand (a three-time Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award winner) is a direct response to Shirley Jackson’s 1959 classic story The Haunting of Hill House. How does Elizabeth Hand challenge, update, and/or expand on the ideas of Shirley Jackson? How well does A Haunting on the Hill continue the tale of The Haunting of Hill House and/or stand on its own as a work of Gothic horror?

In this module, we will consider the challenges of the sequel or “inspired-by” work, discuss A Haunting on the Hill both in its context and on its own merits, note how the novel fits into Elizabeth Hand’s larger body of writings, and explore the ongoing relevance of the Gothic to 21st-century readers.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Elizabeth Hand
	Discussion 1: Chapters 1-30
Week 2	Lecture 2: The Witch of Edmonton and Other Inspirations
	Discussion 2: Chapters 31-62
Week 3	Lecture 3: Murder Ballads and Other Inspirations
	Discussion 3: Chapters 63-Epilogue
Week 4	Lecture 4: Critical Receptions
	Discussion 4: Themes and Takeaways

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson is a classic of Gothic horror, a haunted house tale lauded by critics, loved by readers, and repeatedly adapted for stage and screen for more than half a century. What makes this novel a successful example of its genre? Why has it spoken to generations of readers? How does its messages represent and/or transcend its time? In this module we will explore the context and inspirations for The Haunting of Hill House, its popular and critical receptions, its place in Shirley Jackson’s larger body of work, and its impact on contemporary readers.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Shirley Jackson and Genre
	Discussion 1: Chapters 1-3
Week 2	Lecture 2: Haunted Spaces
	Discussion 2: Chapters 4-5
Week 3	Lecture 3: Ancestor Texts
	Discussion 3: Chapters 6-9
Week 4	Lecture 4: Critical Receptions and Descendant Texts
	Discussion 4: Themes and Takeaways

This is the Landing Page for Dr. Koke Saavedra's two-module series, Imagination Unhinged at the End of the World:

Module 1 explores the rich Chilean Gothic, where, amidst sublime, disquieting and disjointed physical and cultural landscapes, Poe and Lovecraft continue exerting much influence. Famous works, like The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal, coexist with many unknown jewels. Given Chile’s extreme and vast geography, and persistent ‘frontier culture’, fantastic ‘lost cities’ and ‘lost worlds’ adventures have abounded here. We will look at local classics of this fun, gripping subgenre.

Module 2 explores how, under dictatorship, Chilean SFF creation mainly moved abroad, together with its exiled creators, such as Isabel Allende, and her The House of Spirits.

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Note: Students can jump in at any month/part of the Series. There are no prerequisites.

Note: Although this is a two-part series, each module stands on its own. Students are welcome to join in for any module of the series. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Surely life at the world's end will unhinge your imagination! See by yourself by exploring the extraordinary, diverse science fiction and fantasy (SFF) of Chile, a remote land barely hanging at the edge of our planet. Boasting a grand literary tradition, and literally zero interest in hard science, Chilean SFF is different, opening unusual vistas into the imaginative landscape.

In the first part of this two-module series, we will first explore the rich Chilean Gothic, where, amidst sublime, disquieting and disjointed physical and cultural landscapes, Poe and Lovecraft continue exerting much influence. Famous works, like The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal, coexist with many unknown jewels. Given Chile’s extreme and vast geography, and persistent ‘frontier culture’, fantastic ‘lost cities’ and ‘lost worlds’ adventures have abounded here. We will look at local classics of this fun, gripping subgenre.

After losing ourselves on remote places in search of treasure and immortality, we will explore the incisive ‘New Wave’ feminist SFF of the Chilean sixties—in particular Elena Aldunate and Ilda Cádiz Ávila, two remarkable authors whose influence grows every year as female voices are rediscovered and empowered. Perhaps a cautionary tale, Chilean proud 150-year-old democracy burned and crashed on 9/11/1973.

Chile has also produced remarkable SFF comics, creatively expressing (or repressing) changing local moods. We will explore exciting works, little known in the US, including the adventures of Mampato and the extraordinary Guardians of the South, a decolonizing comics depicting indigenous Mapuche as superheroes, precisely at a time of their political uprising.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: y disquieting Gothic stuff.
	Discussion 1: Class discussion on Lecture 1 material.
Week 2	Lecture 2: Lost Worlds and Fantastic Cities Aplenty: Why not just grab some horses and go in search of eternal life and gold by the bucketfuls in the foreboding Andes and the forbidding Patagonian fiords?
	Discussion 2: Class discussion on Lecture 2 material.
Week 3	Lecture 3: Forget Neruda! The amazing feminist 'New Wave' sixties science fiction of Isabel Aldunate and Ilda Cádiz Ávila.
	Discussion 3: Class discussion on Lecture 3 material.
Week 4	Lecture 4: Top comics in the Andes: From time-traveling Mampato and Jodorowsky’s Incal to the decolonizing, native Mapuche superheroes, The Guardians of the South
	Discussion 4: Class discussion on Lecture 4 material.

Note: Although this is a two-part series, each module stands on its own. Students are welcome to join in for any module of the series. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Surely life at the world's end will unhinge your imagination! See by yourself by exploring the extraordinary, diverse science fiction and fantasy (SFF) of Chile, a remote land barely hanging at the edge of our planet. Boasting a grand literary tradition, and literally zero interest in hard science, Chilean SFF is different, opening unusual vistas into the imaginative landscape.

In the second part of this two-module series, we will explore how, under dictatorship, Chilean SFF creation mainly moved abroad, together with its exiled creators, such as Isabel Allende, and her The House of Spirits.

Since the return to democracy in 1990, Chilean SFF has been shaped by profound, historically unresolved social conflicts, such as colonial and patriarchal legacies, an ambiguous relationship with technology, persisting ‘classism’ and socio-economic inequalities, and the lingering traumas of the military regime.

Post-humanist SF, Cyber- and Steam-Punk, have taken strong roots in Chile by addressing those old conflicts in impactful literary works, such as Alicia Fenieux’s Clone’s Love or Muñoz Valenzuela’s Flowers for a Cyborg. A decade of massive foreign immigration, of over 10% of the national population, compounded social tensions. And the optimism that followed redemocratization and lightning-fast economic growth ended abruptly in 2019 with a dramatic ‘social explosion’, where millions of people took to the streets after a minor rise in the cost of public transportation. Remarkably, SFF is thriving under these unsettling social conditions, as Chilean SFF authors alchemically transform the new anxieties into extraordinary imaginative creations.

A true Chilean Golden Age of SFF is being born as zombies and other dreadful creatures run rampant. Inspired, though dystopian social visions combine with technological nightmares to create some of the best imaginative literature ever created in the country.

Lastly, we will look at the Cyber-Shamanism of Jorge Baradit—Magic Realism 2.0?—an inspired, neo-techno-Gothic expression of the ‘new pessimism’, mixing Cyber-Punk and indigenous spirituality to express the new fears arising from the expansion of organized crime, violence and corruption, threatening social dissolution not only in Chile but in the Americas as a whole.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as follows:

• Lecture 1: Magic Realism & Real Dictatorship: Isabel Allende’s 'The House of Spirits' and other potent exiled imaginations.
• Discussion 1: Class discussion on Lecture 1 material.


• Lecture 2: Posthumanism's alive and well in the South Pacific: From cyborg social justice revenge to clones’ love betrayals.
• Discussion 2: Class discussion on Lecture 2 material.


• Lecture 3: Chilean zombie attacks, vampires on the lose, and other easily preventable catastrophes: Pop goes the future!
• Discussion 3: Class discussion on Lecture 3 material.


• Lecture 4: A pessimist Golden Age and Magic Realism 2.0? Cyber-Punk, Cyber-Shamanism & Jorge Baradit's “Magical Conquest of America”.
• Discussion 4: Class discussion on Lecture 4 material.

The Horned God, alongside being modern paganism's most popular deity, enjoys a rich heritage in speculative fiction and popular culture. In this module, we will explore his ancient (and modern) origins, his appearances in both esoteric and popular literature, and his surprising role as an environmental figure. Throughout the module, students will gain familiarity with the four core figures that make up the Horned God (Pan, Cernunnos, the Sorcerer of Trois Freres, and Herne the Hunter), and key narratives associated with him. They will also have an opportunity to ponder the complex web of influences between modern paganism and speculative fiction.

This module builds on the work of Margaret Murray and the module 'The Witch-Cult Hypothesis', but does not require prior knowledge of the material covered there.

One of the most relevant novels you could read right now was written almost two centuries ago. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man asks what it means to be human while living in unprecedented times. This 1826 classic of apocalyptic science fiction considers the implications of a global pandemic, a rapidly changing environment, and the failures of political and social institutions. Part imaginative autobiography, part science fictional warning, and part ecocritical thought experiment, The Last Man forces us to examine our assumptions about our present and future.

In this module we will consider Mary Shelley’s novel in the context of her life, times, and intellectual history. We will also explore the afterlife of The Last Man in critical discussions of the ominously similar challenges we face in the 21st century. In the process, we will discuss the novel’s lasting meanings and contributions as pioneering work of speculative fiction.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: The Last Man
	Discussion 1: Introduction and Volume 1
Week 2	Lecture 2: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
	Discussion 2: Volume 2
Week 3	Lecture 3: Inspirations and Ancestor Texts
	Discussion 3: Volume 3
Week 4	Lecture 4: Pandemic and Post-Apocalyptic Literature
	Discussion 4: Themes and Takeaways

The Gothic genre has inspired many creative minds to explore the darker realms of human psychology and the wider world, sparking fear, terror, horror and repulsion in its audience. J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is as much a ruined Gothic wasteland as it is an idyllic utopia. From Shelob's cave and the hypnotic Mirkwood to the Paths of the Dead and the Barrow-Downs, this module will examine Tolkien's use of Dark Romantic and Gothic techniques that were used by writers such as Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and E.T.A. Hoffman to strike terror in the heart of their readers.

The module will follow an 8-lesson structure:

• Lecture 1: The Funk of Forty Thousand Years: A Literary History of the Gothic
• Discussion 1: Chilly Echoes in Tolkien's Middle-earth
• Lecture 2: Bottomless Supernatural: Terror, Horror, Abject
• Discussion 2: Conjuring Creepy Creatures
• Lecture 3: The Weird, the Eerie, and the Dark Side of the Mind
• Discussion 3: Defamiliarising Middle-earth
• Lecture 4: Ruined Landscapes
• Discussion 4: What is left? Can the Gothic recover Middle-earth?

Note: The hybrid 8-lesson structure above is the new format for this module moving forward.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously 'found' his legendarium, translating and editing The Red Book of Westmarch for his twentieth century readers. This is not the first time an author has 'forged' a 'lost' literary history as James Macpherson's 'Ossian' documents from the 1760s started a craze for forgeries. Thomas Chatterton's Rowley and Turgot manuscripts similarly fed off the Ossian controversy while questioning what it really meant to 'forge' a document.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: The 1760s, the Age of Forgery
	Discussion 1: Which Red Book are we reading?
Week 2	Lecture 2: The Growth of Romantic Nationalism
	Discussion 2: The Book of Lost Tales: a mythology for which England?
Week 3	Lecture 3: Oral Traditions: Immortality and Youth
	Discussion 3: Vocalising Myth and History
Week 4	Lecture 4: Textual Traditions: Mortal Anxiety and Tangible History
	Discussion 4: Writing myth and history

The imagination and dreams are essential parts of J.R.R. Tolkien's world building which he explored across many stories from 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'On Fairy-stories' to 'The Notion Club Papers'. The same can be said of the Romantics who saw an important connection between the two. In works such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan', Lord Byron's 'The Dream' and 'Darkness', and Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', the imaginary and dream-like meet with awe-inspiring, melancholy or blood-chilling results.

Class Outline:

• Class 1: The Realms of (Childhood) Faery (60m)
• Class 2: Faery’s Enchantment (60m)
• Class 3: The Terror of the Night (60m)
• Class 4: The Past is an Imagined Dreamworld (90m)
• Class 5: Visions of the Apocalypse (60m)
• Class 6: Senses and Sensation (60m)
• Class 7: Glimpses, mere Fragments (90m)

When we think of Gothic Horror, Bram Stoker’s Dracula immediately comes to mind. In this Module, we will explore the reasons why we are drawn to this compelling yet terrifying character, and how Stoker was connecting with Victorian anxiety towards the Supernatural and the Other.

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children has three rules: No Solicitations, No Visitors, and No Quests. Pity that most worlds give no care for rules not their own.