Institute Schedule
Below is the tentative schedule which is subject to change.
This institute will feature presentations and discussions, visiting scholars and authors, ongoing conversation, field trips, and the development and sharing of individual projects. Each day’s curriculum revolves around primary sources with a presentation and discussion led by one of the project co-directors or a featured scholar or author.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Week 1: June 17-21
Monday, June 17
The Origins of Gothic Literature and its American Expressions
9:00 AM - Introduction to the Institute & Ground Rules for Discussion
9:30 AM - The Origins of Gothic Literature, Poe, and Southern Gothic
12:30 PM - Lunch
1:30 PM - New England Gothic with Faye Ringel
Texts
"Storms and Sunshine or the House on the Hill" by Sally Wood
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Man in the Black Suit” by Stephen King
Recommended further reading:
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Tuesday, June 18
The Puritans, Their Religious Beliefs, and New England Gothic (with Dr. Francis Bremer)
9:00 AM - Presentation by Dr Francis Bremer
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Discussion with Dr. Francis Bremer
2:30 PM - Discussion of “Rappaccini’s Daughter”
4:00 PM - Brainstorm and workshop ideas for individual projects
Texts
“The Puritan and His God” from Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis Bremer
Selections from Maglnalia Christi Americana by Cotton Mather
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathanial Hawthorne
"The Call of Cthulu" by H. P. Lovecraft
Recommended further reading:
“The Day of Doom” by Michael Wigglesworth
"The Unnameable" by H. P. Lovecraft
Watch the short film adaptation of “Rappaccini’s Daughter”
Wednesday, June 19
The Salem Witch Trials and New England Gothic (at the Essex National Heritage Area with Dr. Emerson Baker)
7:00 AM - Depart for Essex National Heritage Area to meet with Dr. Emerson Baker
9:00 AM - Presentation by Dr Baker at Salem Witch Trial locations
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Visit the Danvers Archival Center with Dr. Baker
2:30 PM - Discussion of “The Lottery”
4:00 PM - Return to Saint Joseph’s College
Texts
“The Devil in New England” by Cotton Mather
“The Salem Witch Trials” by Emerson Baker (available in the Saint Joseph’s Library)
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Watch the short film version of “The Lottery” (1969)
Thursday, June 20
Vampire Folklore and New England Gothic (in Exeter, Rhode Island, with Dr. Michael Bell)
6:00 AM - Depart to Rhode Island to meet with Dr. Michael Bell
9:00 AM - Visit sites associated with the New England vampire scare with Dr. Bell
12:00 PM - Lunch & Discussion of “The Shunned House”
2:00 PM - Visit to the H.P. Lovecraft Collection at Brown University
5:00 PM - Stay the night in Rhode Island
Texts
“Old Superstition” by Mary Andrews Denison
"The Shunned House” by H. P. Lovecraft
“American Vampires and the Ongoing Ambiguity of Death” by Michael Bell
"'Diabolists and Decadents': Lovecraft's Gothic Purtians" by Faye Ringel
Recommended further reading:
“The Vampire Theory: That Search for Spectral Ghoul in the Exeter Grave” from The Providence Journal (1892)
“The Animistic Vampire in New England” by George R. Stetson
“The Belief in Vampires in Rhode Island” by Sidney Rider
Friday, June 21
Carrie and the “thin difficult soil of New England”
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of Carrie
11:00 AM- Travel back to Saint Joseph’s College with lunch along the way
4:00 PM- Participants present their initial project idea for discussion by the group, followed by time for initial research and project planning. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
Text
Carrie by Stephen King
Recommended Further Reading/Listening
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Week 2: June 24-28
Monday, June 24
Home is Where The Haunt Is: An Errand into the Wilderness & Eventual Decline
9:00 AM - Screening and discussion of The Witch (2015)
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Presentation on and discussion of “The Whisper in Darkness”
4:00 PM - Present finalized overall plan for project to group for discussion, then time for research and work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
Texts
“The Little Maid at the Door” by Mary Wilkins Freeman
“Puritanism, the Wilderness, and the Frontier” by Alan Heimert
“The Whisper in Darkness” by H. P. Lovecraft
“A New England Hill Town” by Amos Noyes Currier
Recommended further reading/viewing:
Read “A Brief Recognition of New England’s Errand into the Wilderness” (https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=libraryscience)
Watch “Can Deny My Love” music video by Brandon Flowers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iiDlU4rhlY)
Tuesday, June 25
Home is Where The Haunt Is: The “tired old hills” of New England
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of “The Summer People”
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Presentation on and discussion of “Jerusalem’s Lot"
4:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
6:00 PM - Screening of an episode of Chapelwaite (2021)
Texts
“The Summer People” by Shirley Jackson
“‘A Faithful Anatomy of Our Times’: Reassessing Shirley Jackson" by Angela Hague
"Jerusalem’s Lot” by Stephen King
Wednesday, June 26
Who’s Being Held Captive? Puritan Captivity Narratives and a Sojourn into Lovecraft Country
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of Puritan captivity narratives
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Screening of an episode of Lovecraft Country and discussion of “The Dunwich Horror”
4:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
Texts
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson
“Writing Indigenous Femininity: Mary Rowlandson's Narrative of Captivity” by Tiffany Potter
“The Dunwich Horror” by H.P. Lovecraft
Recommended further reading/viewing:
The captivity narrative of Hannah Duston in Magnalia Christi Americana by Cotton Mather and compare with Nathanial Hawthorne’s retelling in “The Duston Family”
Thursday, June 27
Who’s Being Held Captive?: Witchcraft and Race in Colonial New England
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon and I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Roundtable with participants discussing how what they’ve done so far might translate into the classroom.
2:00 PM - Participants workshop in-progress projects in small groups followed by time for research and work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
Texts
I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé
A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon
“Witchcraft, Race, and Resistance in Colonial New England” by Timothy J. McMillan
“The African American Slave Narrative and the Gothic” by Teresa A. Goddu
Friday, June 28
Who’s Being Held Captive?: Is There an Indigenous Gothic? (with Joseph Bruchac)
9:00 AM - Discussion of Whisper in the Dark with author Joseph Bruchac
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Discussion of selections from Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
4:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
Texts
Whisper in the Dark by Joseph Bruchac
Selections from Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
“Is There an Indigenous Gothic?” by Michelle Burnham
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Week 3: July 1-5
Monday, July 1
Who’s Being Held Captive?: I Don’t Wanna be Buried in a Pet Sematary
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of Pet Sematary with John Bear Mitchell
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects. Project drafts should be at or
near completion by this time today. Each participant will meet with a Co-Director to briefly review the draft.
Texts
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
“Horror Older Than America: Whitewashing Native Tales for a Mass-Market Audience” by T. J. Tranchell
“The Horror! The Horror? The Appropriation, and Reclamation, of Native American Mythology” by Joe Nazare
Tuesday, July 2
Yielding to or Fighting Fear: Re-imagining Gothic Spaces
9:00 AM - Presentation on and discussion of selections from Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Luella Miller”
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects. Co-Directors will be available for one-on-one discussions.
4:00 PM - Research / Time to work on individual projects
7:00 PM - Optional screening of the film We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018)
Texts
Selections from Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories by Harriet Beecher Stowe
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman
“Luella Miller” by Mary Wilkins Freeman
“Doctoring ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’" by Jane F. Thrailkill
“Geographies of Intimacy in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s Short Fiction” by Jennifer Ansley
Recommended further reading/viewing:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
“House Mothers and Haunted Daughters: Shirley Jackson and Female Gothic” by Roberta Rubenstein
Wednesday, July 3
Yielding To or Fighting Fear: “Anyone can give a kiss”
7:00 AM - Depart for Stephen King Archives in Bangor, Maine
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Presentation on and discussion of Dolores Claiborne at the archives
4:00 PM - Return to Saint Joseph’s College
Text
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Thursday, July 4
Federal Holiday
Friday, July 5
9:00 AM - Time to finalize individual projects
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Presentations of individual projects
6:00 PM - Final dinner together
"I could tell that I was at the gateway of a region half-bewitched through the piling-up of unbroken time-accumulations; a region where old, strange things have had a chance to grow and linger because they have never been stirred up." - H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in the Darkness"