Offered Spring of 2027 (Semester 2)

This seminar will consider the Grotesque as an aesthetic category through which authors have commented on The Other, epidemics, the divine, liminal states of being, marginalized bodies, dystopian visions of the future, and all things unorthodox. Students will have the chance to read literary theories that attempt to define the Grotesque, apply those theories to the works they read, and finally to come up with their own theory of the Grotesque. The course will also explore the related genres of horror, the Sublime, the Uncanny, and Surrealism. Examples of texts we will read include Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. Texts will be supplemented by extensive analysis of visual and performance art.