Hauntings: Ghosts, Presences & Residues

“I believe—I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always—

take any form—drive me mad!”

 —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

In this course we’ll expand our understanding of how writing is often the site of lingering, numinous, immaterial presences. We’ll begin with the tradition of the ghost story— a literary device beloved by writers for centuries across many genres. Beyond the consideration of the supernatural, we’ll also investigate more abstract capacities in which texts—and writers (and sometimes editors!)—are inevitably possessed by an other, a presence that lingers persistently, making itself known whether we welcome it or not. Memory and trauma are their own kinds of ghosts. Similarly, we’ll discover how traces of works by writers we admire, our teachers, even a specific text or image, can manifest as spectral forms inhabiting our work. We’ll address the complexities of those vestiges in terms of appropriation and originality—what Harold Bloom calls “the anxiety of influence.” Students will process and explore these ideas in both creative and analytical writings throughout the semester.

Course Books (available at Book Culture):

Eileen Myles, Afterglow

Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ghost Of

Lucie Brock Broido, Trouble in Mind

Mary Reufle, A Little White Shadow

Max Porter, Grief is the Thing With Feathers

All other readings will be posted on Courseworks as PDFs.