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Teaching the Contemporary Gothic

Teaching the Contemporary Gothic. Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes Department of English Manchester Metropolitan University X.Aldana-Reyes@mmu.ac.uk @ XAldanaReyes. Aims. Outline of problems faced when teaching the Gothic genre in C21 context Curriculum design

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Teaching the Contemporary Gothic

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  1. TeachingtheContemporaryGothic Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes Department of English Manchester MetropolitanUniversity X.Aldana-Reyes@mmu.ac.uk @XAldanaReyes

  2. Aims • Outline of problemsfacedwhenteachingthe Gothic genre in C21 context • Curriculumdesign • Practiceinfluencedbyacademia • Critical/Pedagogicjourneyof Gothic Studies

  3. Experience • Gothic and Gender(MMU Cheshire, 2011-2012) • Level 5 / Y2 • Convened, redesigned and taught • ContemporaryLiterature in English (MMUC, 2012-2013) • Level 6 / Y3 • Co-convened, co-redesigned and co-taught • Gothic and Modernity(MMU, 2013-2014) • MA level – Gothicpathway • Co-convening, co-redesigned and co-teaching • ContemporaryGothic: Text and Screen(Lancaster 2010-2011) • Audited, taughtby Catherine Spooner • ContemporaryGothicreadinggroup (MMU, 2013-)

  4. Plus relevant blog entries

  5. Verybriefoverview

  6. Developments in Teaching • Presence at A-Level • Important and increasingpart of BA programmes • GothicMAsorMAswithGothic • Teaching guides and materials • Outreachprogrammes Open days • Training programmesforteachers

  7. General Curriculum Re/Design • Some general (ideal) aims • Tools tounderstandcontext and knowledge of Gothic • Liven up teaching • Toreflectcurrentareas of debate • Toreflectwhatweresearch, butnot at the expense of onlywhatweknowbest (Spooner 2008) • Practicalconsiderations • Textsthatworkwellwithstudents • Availability • Price • Length

  8. 1. Whatconstitutes a Gothictext? • Collection of tropes, characters? • Aesthetics? • Mood? • Intertextuality? • Adaptation? • Nomenclature?

  9. 2. Contemporaryisill-defined and unstable (When?) • Socio-historicalapproach? Cultural approach? Landmarktextapproach? Periodapproach? • C21 isuseful in delineatingcut-off point, butsometimestextsneededthatwerewrittenpreviously

  10. 3. Receptionproblems (Why?) • Popularity vs. Literarysignificance • Low-brow vs. high-brow debate • Raisesproblem of purpose

  11. 4. Discipline and context determines themedium (What? Where?) • Fragmentation and explosion • Challengetostudent and teacher • Areawithin discipline determines text • Country determines text

  12. 5. Gothic as subjector as criticaltool? (How? / Why?) • EarlyGothiccriticism • Commontropes, characters, situations, images, etc. • Development of areas of study, throughout late twentiethcentury • Psychoanalysis, FemaleGothic, Postcolonial Gothic • Researchcouncils MedicalGothic

  13. Shapedbycriticaltheory and practice • ‘Theteaching of theGothictodayistheproduct of a reactivatedpsychoanalysis, a post1950s feminismwhich has expandedinto “genderstudies”, a resurgentMarxism, a genuinely “new historicism” combining cultural anthropologywithDerridean “deconstruction,” and severalforms of “cultural studies” thathave come toinclude “postcolonial” theory and criticism, amongotherstrands. All of thesetogether, challengingthestandards set by New Criticism and high/lowculturedistinctions, havebroughttheGothic forward as a major cultural forcebytheverynature of theirassumptions and therebydrawnsomeGothic “classics” … tothe centre of what a liberal artseducationmustencompassif a collegestudentistobetruly “literate” aboutwhat Western cultureincludes.’ (Hogle 2006)

  14. Conclusions • Genre vs. Mode • Context of Gothic and Gothic Studies in the 2010s • Challengesbutbenefits • Exchange • Continuesto oppose a staticcanon • Popularity • Reading practices

  15. TeachingtheContemporaryGothic Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes Department of English Manchester MetropolitanUniversity X.Aldana-Reyes@mmu.ac.uk @XAldanaReyes

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