Short courses

Summary

The Gothic, with its claustrophobic spaces, brooding landscapes, dark secrets, and nightmarish visitations, is arguably, alongside Halloween, Scottish ghostly gift to the world. Romantic and Victorian fiction writers such as James Hogg, J.M. Barrie, Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George MacDonald pioneered the genre, laying down a disturbing trend of supernatural storytelling that terrified readers for generations. But how did Scotland become the crucible for such disturbing fantasies? Why are we drawn to them? What kinds of anxieties around class, gender, sexuality, nationality, race, crime and capitalism do they vicariously explore? What is the legacy of these dark tales? 

Join this course to explore the dark art of Gothic storytelling in Scottish Romantic and Victorian literature and the wider cultural, social and political fears it brought to life via the sinister and supernatural.  

Over a series of talks and collective close-readings, our expert tutor will explain: 

• The role of five key Scottish ghost-fiction writers in establishing a Scottish Gothic literary mode (namely James Hogg, J.M. Barrie, Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George MacDonald) 
• how specific notable stories from these writers employ literary techniques and devices to create specific reactions and how these conventions establish a Gothic genre or effects 
• the broader historical context of these texts including the acute cultural, social and political anxieties lurking in their representation of the supernatural, fantastic and sinister. 

You will also have the chance to discuss and reflect on what you learn with other students and the tutor in seminars 

Choose this course if you want to learn: 

• more about several important Scottish ghost story writers, how they established the Gothic literary mode and how it came to partly define the character of Scottish literature at this time 
• how to closely analyse specific stories to understand how certain effects were created and articulate what you find 
• more about the broader historical context of the stories and how the supernatural offered an imaginative space to explore specific social anxieties   

Over a series of talks and collective close-readings, our expert tutor will explain: 

• The role of five key Scottish ghost-fiction writers in establishing a Scottish Gothic literary mode (namely James Hogg, J.M. Barrie, Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George MacDonald) 
• how specific notable stories from these writers employ literary techniques and devices to create specific reactions and how these conventions establish a Gothic genre or effects 
• the broader historical context of these texts including the acute cultural, social and political anxieties lurking in their representation of the supernatural, fantastic and sinister. 

You will also have the chance to discuss and reflect on what you learn with other students and the tutor in seminars  

Choose this course if you want to learn: 

• more about several important Scottish ghost story writers, how they established the Gothic literary mode and how it came to partly define the character of Scottish literature at this time 
• how to closely analyse specific stories to understand how certain effects were created and articulate what you find 
• more about the broader historical context of the stories and how the supernatural offered an imaginative space to explore specific social anxieties