To haunt is to be continuously present. To be felt but not seen. To be beyond touch yet unsettlingly palpable. Through readings in American fiction, poetry, and drama, together we will ask, “What specters and ghosts underpin the story of America? How do these haunting figures shape our lives and the literature we write about them? Lastly, how do bodies, buildings, and objects act as repositories of cultural memory?”

Because a marker of haunting is that it situates the past as ever-entangled with the present, we will read works from various time periods, studying the skills required to write about literature across genre and period. As we do so, we will examine various approaches to literature and work towards developing skills in literary analysis and research. Writers to be studied in this course may include: Shirley Jackson, Toni Morrison, LeAnne Howe, James Ijames, and Carmen Maria Machado.