On Teaching Early Gothic Fiction and Non-Empiricist Aesthetics
Keywords:
Gothic, women, realism, empiricism, assignmentsAbstract
The aesthetic judgment that Gothic fiction fails to adhere to the standards of modern empiricist realism is usually paired with a consequent moral or social anxiety, that reading Gothic fiction will disturb young readers’ sentiments and lead to absurd or morbid behavior. While teaching courses on Gothic novels, I find my students often feel caught between the demands of realism and the pleasures of terror. While succumbing to the latter may seem to be the anti-intellectual choice, I argue that indulging in a sympathetic reading of Gothic fiction provides students with an alternative to the normative “common sense” of empiricist realism. Students take particular notice of the ways in which the Gothic attempts to provide space for the affective and imaginative experiences of non-normative characters (persons of non-conforming gender and/or sexuality, immigrants, women, people of color, political radicals, religious dissidents, disabled people, young people, etc.) whose experiences have been so often silenced or marginalized in mainstream literary fiction.Downloads
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