What is this class about?

This course is an exploration of the existence of a Chicana/o gothic.

Gothic literature conveys a sense of uncertainty and suspense through bizarre twists, violence, and moral ambivalence. Monsters, madness and abjection are used as a means to “normalize” or discuss the abnormal, the unspeakable. Looking at Chicano/a texts, some recent, some canonical, can we see these techniques being used to explore the social, political, and racial issues of the Chicano/a communities of the United States?

Are Chicana/o novels and poems using elements of the horrific, the violent, the unorthodox, and/or the supernatural to guide the reader through the story’s action and explore anxieties about the instability of identity and nation? How does thinking about the gothic elements of Chicano/a literature shed new light on their historical experiences and representation? Drawing from constructions of the Southern Gothic and magical realism, what we may come to call “Chicano/a Gothic” is an attempt to discuss, position and define a U.S. Chicano/a literature as a sub-genre of American gothic fiction.

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