Moodle

This course introduces students to theories and methods of cultural studies as they emerged out of literary studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a process that is still ongoing in the twenty-first century. It therefore focuses on both the histories and the contemporary applications of cultural studies. It discusses major theorists, theories and methods, and it offers case studies that illustrate the applications of those. In order to do all this, we will discuss a range of verbal and visual texts.

The written exam will take place on Monday, 14 July 2025, 14:15 to 15:45.

 Text: You need to own, read and bring with you:

Peter Barry. Beginning Theory. 4th edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017.   ISBN 9781526121790

Other texts will be made available.

In the 21st century, the Gothic – a protean phenomenon that keeps changing in different times and in different spaces – is omnipresent in popular cultures worldwide. It is to be found in literature, where it also constitutes a genre, in films, TV-series, music, fashion, lifestyles, websites, blogs, advertising and in other sites of cultural production. In this lecture course, we will trace the Gothic predominantly in literature, but also in some films, from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on highly canonical texts, we will discuss various definitions and manifestations of the Gothic, for instance in the works of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Charles Brockden Brown, Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Lord Byron, John Polidori, John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Gaston Leroux, Daphne du Maurier.

 There will be a final test (45 mins) in the second half of the last lecture, which will be held on 15 July 2025.