UH 300.009
21st-Century Fantasy: The Dark Fantastic
Spring 2011
3-5:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Nott Hall basement computer-lab classroom (up the ramp)
Teacher: Andy Duncan
Contact me via e-mail and Facebook.
All students in this class must be enrolled in the University Honors Program.
Texts (any editions OK):
- Juan Antonio Bayona, The Orphanage (2007; New Line Home Video, 2008)
- Guillermo Del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006; New Line Home Video, 2007)
- Jeffrey Ford, The Shadow Year (Morrow, 2008; Harper Perennial, 2009)
- Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008; HarperCollins, 2010)
- Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box (Morrow, 2007; Harper, 2009)
- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin, 1959; Penguin Classics, 2006)
- Stephen King, Under the Dome (Scribner, 2009; Pocket, 2010)
- Kelly Link, Pretty Monsters (Viking, 2008; Speak, 2010)
- Peter Straub, ed., American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to Now (2 vols.; Library of America, 2009)
- Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger (Riverhead, 2009; Riverhead, 2010)
- Robert Wise, The Haunting (1963; Warner Home Video, 2003)
- Handouts, online materials or reserve-room materials as announced.
Course Description: Deal-making devils, microscopic madmen, vengeful Elder Gods, mannequins that come to life, and any number of ghosts, vampires and other revenants all haunt this interdisciplinary seminar on the literature of the weird, the supernatural, the horrific, the uncanny. Our texts range from illustrious ancestors such as Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe to some of the most acclaimed and influential purveyors of contemporary nightmares.
Course Objectives: The class is designed to deepen students’ understanding of the Dark Fantastic in all its modes, including short stories, novels, movies and comics. By semester’s end, students will be more sophisticated consumers of the Dark Fantastic, better able to speak and write about it with depth and insight and to understand how this genre engages with the world and vice versa. No previous obsession with the topic is assumed or required.
A Technology Note: Your teacher lives in the mountains of western Maryland and interacts with the class in real time via webcam with the exception of one in-person visit per semester, generally for the final class meeting. Student conferences during the rest of the semester are encouraged; they will take place via phone, e-mail, or Facebook, as the student prefers.
Attendance Policy: Attendance and class participation (in class and online) are required. After two absences, your final grade will be lowered one letter for each subsequent absence. After five absences, you will receive an F for this course. Arriving late or leaving early counts as half an absence. In case of illness, injury or crisis, let your teacher know as soon as possible. Don’t just vanish.
Papers: You will write two non-fiction papers, each at least 2,000 words long, on topics of your choosing that are approved in advance by your teacher. Papers should specifically illuminate one or more of the texts being discussed in this class, but they may extend their focus beyond those texts as well. You will lead a five-to-10-minute class discussion of each topic as you are working on it. Papers handed in late will be docked one letter grade for each day they’re late. Papers more than a week late will not be accepted and will receive a zero. Format Requirements: Both your papers will be handed in electronically. Send them as PC-compatible Word attachments to my e-mail address. Papers must be in 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, with ragged right margins and page numbers in the upper-right corners. Papers that don’t fit this format will be returned unread for correction.
Blog: Each of you will receive (and accept) an invitation to join Blogger and the class blog at http://darkfantastic2011.blogspot.com/. Here our class discussions will continue beyond Wednesday class meetings. Participating on the blog – through original posts and replies to others’ posts – is an important part of your semester grade, so get in the habit of visiting daily and contributing frequently. The minimum class requirement is three posts per week per student, at least one of which must start a new topic or thread, and at least one of which must be a response to a classmate’s post. More frequent posts are highly encouraged. Also chiming in from time to time may be invited guests from the world of fantasy publishing.
Other Assignments and Expectations: You will keep up with all the reading and will participate in all class discussions, orally and online. You will lead at least one class discussion of a text that has been assigned you.
Grade Formula:
Two 2,000-word papers @ 20% each: 40%
Two 5-to-10-minute informal presentations on paper topics @ 10% each: 20%
Blog participation: 20%
In-class participation: 20%
We will follow the UA guidelines for plus-minus grading.
Disabilities: In accordance with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, your teacher, the University Honors Program and the university are committed to providing appropriate support for students with disabilities, including learning disabilities. Any student who wants to request disability accommodations need only contact UA’s office of disability services at 348-4285 and get the paperwork to me.
Academic Misconduct: Academic misconduct includes all acts of academic dishonesty and any knowing attempt to help another student commit academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: (1) Cheating – using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information or study aids. (2) Plagiarism – representing words, data, works or ideas as one’s own when they are not. (3) Fabrication – presenting as genuine any invented or falsified evidence. (4) Misrepresentation – falsifying, altering or misstating the contents of academic documents such as schedules, prerequisites and transcripts. Cases of academic misconduct will be turned over to the University Honors Program for disciplinary action that could be as severe as suspension from the university.
Schedule of class meetings, reading assignments and due dates. All texts will be discussed on the days listed. This is a living document, subject to change. Any changes will be announced in class and via the class blog.
Jan. 12. Getting acquainted.
Jan. 19. Straub, Volume One: Irving, “The Adventure of the German Student”; Poe, “Berenice”; Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; O’Brien, “What Was It?”; Morrow, “His Unconquerable Enemy”; Gilman, “The Yellow Wall Paper”; Chambers, “The Repairer of Reputations”; Wynne, “The Little Room”; Atherton, “The Striding Place.” Last day to drop without a grade of “W”; last day to add a class.
Jan. 26. Straub, Volume One, concluded: Freeman, “Luella Miller”; Hearn, “Yuki-Onna”; Crawford, “For the Blood Is the Life”; Bierce, “The Moonlit Road”; White, “Lukundoo”; Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”; Keller, “The Jelly-Fish”; Lovecraft, “The Thing on the Doorstep.”
Feb. 2. Straub, Volume Two: Collier, “Evening Primrose”; Leiber, “Smoke Ghost”; Williams, “The Mysteries of the Joy Rio”; Jackson, “The Daemon Lover”; Finney, “I’m Scared”; Bradbury, “The April Witch”; Grubb, “Where the Woodbine Twineth”; Ellison, “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”; Matheson, “Prey”; Carroll, “Mr. Fiddlehead.”
Feb. 9. Straub, Volume Two, concluded: Oates, “Family”; Saunders, “Sea Oak”; Kiernan, “The Long Hall on the Top Floor”; Tessier, “Nocturne”; Hill, “Pop Art”; Brite, “Pansu”; Millhauser, “Dangerous Laughter”; Rickert, “The Chambered Fruit”; Link, “Stone Animals”: Percy, “Dial Tone.”
Feb. 16. Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House.
Feb. 23. Discussion of paper ideas.
March 2. First paper due. Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage.
March 9. Link, Pretty Monsters.
March 16. Spring break. No class.
March 23. No class. Blog discussion of Waters, The Little Stranger. Last day to drop with a grade of “W.”
March 30. Gaiman, The Graveyard Book.
April 6. Ford, The Shadow Year; Hill, Heart-Shaped Box.
April 13. King, Under the Dome.
April 20. Discussion of paper ideas.
April 27: The Haunting. Course wrap-up.
Second paper due 9:30 p.m. Thursday, May 5 -- the end of what would have been our final, had this been one of those classes. No final exam.
About your teacher: My collection Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (2000) won a World Fantasy Award, as did my story “The Pottawatomie Giant” (2000). My novella “The Chief Designer” (2001) won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction story of the year. Upcoming in 2011 are a new collection, The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, from PS Publishing; a new story, “Slow as a Bullet,” in the anthology Eclipse Four, from Night Shade Books; and a new critical essay (co-written with Sydney Duncan), “How Donna Noble Saved the Multiverse (and Had To Pay for It),” in The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who, from the Science Fiction Foundation. My other books include a novelette, The Night Cache (2009); a non-fiction book, Alabama Curiosities (2nd ed., 2009); and a fiction anthology (co-edited with F. Brett Cox), Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (2004). I contributed essays to the Hugo Award-winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (2003) and to the Stoker Award-winning Horror: Another 100 Best Books (2005). I have taught at the Clarion and Clarion West writers’ workshops and been a juror for the Bram Stoker Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award.
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