From "Bates Motel" to "Hannibal," "Celebrity Ghost Story" to "American Horror Story," contemporary American culture is rife with the uncanny, the unnatural, and the undead. This introductory literature class will seek to frame this apparent cultural obsession through an investigation of literature of the American gothic. Texts read will include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Herman Melville, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Dorothy Allison, and Joyce Carol Oates, and perhaps a film or two. Students will be responsible for three short essays (for "W" credit), a midterm and final exam, and a group presentation.