Using The Shining In Spring 2014 Class

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Cybird9

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Sep 21, 2013
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Nashville, TN
I'm going to be using The Shining in my Spring 2014 Gothic Literature and Film class on Tue-Thurs at 1 pm. The lineup is as follows:
Frankenstein (Gothic, 1931 Frankenstein, and Kenneth Branaugh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death (American International Films with Vincent Price)
Dracula (1931 Bela Lugosi and 1991 Gary Oldman, commentary by Christopher Lee)
Candyman (film and Clive Barker's "The Forbidden")
The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin)
The Shining (King and Stanley Kubrick's film)
Beloved (Toni Morrison and Jonathan Demme)

I've used Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting before, as well as Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Ed Gein. Have any of you ever taken any literature classes with a horror theme? Would you take one if you could?
 

Walter Oobleck

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We read Paradise Lost in an honors seminar in which I was mistakenly placed...professor Levin smiled kindly when I asked if he thought I was grad-school material, (I think he did a fine job suppressing his laughter)...him he hurled headlong...or does Milton qualify as a horror writer? And yes, I'd take one now if the timing was right. Where do we sign up? Or wait now...1 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday...do you frown on those who enter the classroom late?
 
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Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
We read Paradise Lost in an honors seminar in which I was mistakenly placed...professor Levin smiled kindly when I asked if he thought I was grad-school material, (I think he did a fine job suppressing his laughter)...him he hurled headlong...or does Milton qualify as a horror writer? And yes, I'd take one now if the timing was right. Where do we sign up? Or wait now...1 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday...do you frown on those who enter the classroom late?

Lol, yes, pretty much, but I'm paid to be pissed off about attrition. Most of the films take at least two class periods, so I have to also reserve time for writing and discussion. It is a sophomore level humanities class (used to be classified as English, but it's interdisciplinary, after all). I also teach Paradise Lost (which also influenced Frankenstein and is alluded to as one of the novels that helps the monster learn to read...wow, what an advanced first grade reader! lol); we just covered the first three chapters of PL in my British Survey class. I'm an Associate Professor of English at Fisk University in Nashville, TN. Paradise Lost is a gem of a horror tale, but my first love in college was Dante. He's reserved for my Continental Masterpieces class, taught it last year. A third of my dissertation was on Metropolis of 1926 (a big influence for James Whale's Frankenstein in 1931), as well. BTW, the only time I discourage people from grad school is if they really aren't good enough in writing or reading, have lousy, entitled attitudes, or can't handle political pressure from all sides. You have to be made of steel to teach and write--school is a snap, by comparison to being on the tenure track. I won't give recommendations for students who can't even pull a B in undergrad classes--a C average in most grad schools will get you kicked out. I would be remiss to advise students to try it if they truly aren't already equipped. It's a very competitive field. I've had English majors who plagiarized, proving that they are unfit for dogmeat; why they would want to go through torture under some of the most erudite *******s God ever put on this green earth, I have no idea!:)
 

Walter Oobleck

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Yeah...Dante...read that one in a humanities class. And I think/recall that I'd read it a year or two prior. If you haven't had a chance to read Heller's Closing Time, check it out...a kind of Inferno-update. The Shining was my introduction to King...yay, all those years ago...but it wasn't until I picked up a copy of The Gunslinger (in '06...summer of ought-six) that I began to read all he has.
 

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
I'm not an American Lit specialist, although I do cover some American works (like King's) for my Gothic class, and while I read Catch-22 in grad school, I haven't read Closing Time--didn't know about it. It is a sequel to Catch-22, so I will look into it. I did the first 1/3 of my dissertation on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, the second 1/3 on Ezra Pound's Vorticist poems (including The Cantos, part of which are based on The Inferno), and the last 1/3 on Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Another good one to read is Jerry Pournelle's and Larry Niven's Inferno--the main character is a science fiction writer named Alan Carpentier--you might like it, and it's a quick read, to boot.
 

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN
Oh yes, I would. Where were you when I was in school?

Lol, I don't know--when did you attend? I've taught this class since about 2004. Our school has suffered in enrollment even worse than it usually did, which meant that the last time I taught it was in 2010. I tried to offer it last year, but it didn't make--I've got 5 enrolled so far in preregistration, and provided they don't drop and more may add, it has a good chance of making this year. I hope so! It is my hobby class (the one I WANT to teach), so I'm praying that it's a go! The students I've talked to seem pretty excited about it, too. We shall see how it goes!
 

Dana Jean

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...I sure would have takenn the class, and would have actually payed attention instead of trying to see down girl's blouses....c'mon it was high scholl!...oh hell, who'm I kidding...I STILL do it...
When I was in school, I wore this really lovely dress. And it laced up at the boobs like a bodice. When I turned the corner into my hallway, ALL the guys climbed up on the radiator so they could see down the front at my cleavage. I mean, it was like an orchestrated play! I turned the corner and the whole line all the way down the radiator, they climbed up and had stupid grins on their faces.

Needless to say, I walked with books in front of my chest the rest of the day. And the next time I wore the dress, I wore a camisole cover underneath.
 

Cybird9

Member
Sep 21, 2013
23
81
Nashville, TN

Just an update: I've now got 18 in the class! Biggest literature class on campus! We just got done with Frankenstein (we watched Gothic, 1931 and 1994 versions of the films), just got through with my lecture on Edgar Allan Poe and about to show the American International film versions of Masque of the Red Death and The Pit and the Pendulum. Everything except technical stuff is going smoothly--I swear, our IT dept really sucks!
 

FlakeNoir

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Just an update: I've now got 18 in the class! Biggest literature class on campus! We just got done with Frankenstein (we watched Gothic, 1931 and 1994 versions of the films), just got through with my lecture on Edgar Allan Poe and about to show the American International film versions of Masque of the Red Death and The Pit and the Pendulum. Everything except technical stuff is going smoothly--I swear, our IT dept really sucks!
I'm really pleased it's going so well for you. :) (And... sorry about the IT stuff, computers can be so fickle!)