Event—Adult Education

Exploring Feminist Gothic Literature through Time

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Explore feminist themes in Gothic novels, short stories, and films spanning the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries.

Illustration from Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire story, 1872. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Class Description

In this course, we will explore feminist themes in Gothic novels, short stories, and films spanning the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Specifically, we will evaluate how the Gothic functions as a form of social critique that offers insight into women’s lived experiences throughout time. Beginning with the famed lesbian vampire novella Carmilla—which predates Dracula by more than twenty years—we will study the figure of the queer-coded vampire and the significance of classical Gothic motifs like the haunted manor. We then turn to short stories, including “The Yellow Wallpaper” and selections from Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, to evaluate the role of the mind and physical body in the horror landscape. Film adaptations of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives offer insight into the home and body as sites of haunting, while also providing commentary on the U.S. women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we conclude with the contemporary novel The Hacienda, which offers models of feminist resistance to colonialism, racism, and sexual violence. Through this text, we examine how the Gothic continues to evolve as a tool for critical analysis.

Sarah Jeffries is a Writing Advisor at the University of Chicago. She holds an MA in Women & Gender Studies from Loyola University Chicago. Her research interests combine feminist analysis and historical inquiry to explore twentieth-century literature.

What to Expect

Format: In Person

Class Capacity: 12

Class Style: Mostly discussion; participation-based

Materials List

Required

  • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla. Lanterngish Press, 2019. ISBN: 978-1-941360-38-5
  • Carmen Maria Machado. Her Body and Other Parties. Graywolf Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-55597-7
  • Isabel Cañas, The Hacienda. Berkley, 2023. ISBN: 9780593436707
  • Dir. Roman Polanski, Rosemary’s Baby, Paramount Pictures, 1968. Available to watch on the Internet Archive, Hoopla, or Paramount+.
  • Dir. Bryan Forbes, The Stepford Wives, Columbia Pictures, 1975. Available to watch on the Internet Archive, Tubi, or Paramount+.
  • Other Instructor-Distributed Materials

First Reading

  • Please read Carmilla

A Brief Syllabus

  1. Introductions
  2. Contemporary Gothic
  3. “The Yellow Wallpaper”
  4. The Suburban Gothic
  5. The Hacienda
  6. The Hacienda

Cost and Registration

6 Sessions, $245 ($220.50 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.

We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($245), Community Supported ($225), and Sponsor ($265). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.

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