Trauma, mourning and melancholia, memory and its repression, counter-histories and their suppression testify to the ghostly presence of the past. In this class students will grapple with critical practices (theories, fictions and films) that represent such hauntings. How they do so and with what likely effects are the basic questions. Informed participation in class discussion, six short critiques of assigned texts, a final 8-10 page paper, and the purchase of a course packet and three novels are required. In the order taught, they are: E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel; Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina; Le Thi Diem Thuy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For.