WISE: Haunted Daughters: Race, Gender, and the Family in Gothic Fiction

At its heart, the gothic is about the intrusion of the past into the present. It grapples with what happens when the dead haunt the living or past injustices refuse to stay buried. In this course, we will explore the interplay of race, gender, trauma, ancestry, and haunted domestic spaces. Linking a selection of short ghost stories by earlier writers to more recent novels by women authors of color, we will trace permutations of women's gothic writing from 1861 to 2020, focusing especially on how 20th and 21st century women authors of color utilize, subvert, redirect, and interrogate the genre. Assigned novels will include Toni Morrison's classic Beloved, Yangsze Choo's Ghost Bride, and Silvia Morena Garcia's bestselling Mexican Gothic. Earlier texts will include stories by Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Throughout the course, we will ask: why is the gothic such a powerful outlet for women's voices? How do ghost stories explore themes of intergenerational trauma, cultural oppression, and violence? What does it mean for a home or family to be haunted? What do haunted daughters owe to the ghosts of their cultural or familial pasts?