As part of The Conversation’s Uncommon Courses series, Teaching Assistant Professor of English Molly Granatino discusses her course Death, Dying and the Undead.
What prompted the idea for the course? Spooky decorations of ghosts and skeletons will soon be returning to people’s doorsteps ahead of Halloween — but year-round, I am thinking about literary representations of death and dying.
I am not alone. For centuries, death has been a topic of fascination for authors and readers alike. My own research focuses on death in the Victorian era, a period of British literature extending from 1837 to 1901, but what is it about the subject of death more broadly that both attracts and repels?
When I had the chance to propose a special topics course in literature in fall 2024, I knew I wanted to craft a course that attempts to unpack why the topic of death is fascinating for people to both write and read about. Happily, my proposal was accepted.
Read the full article at The Conversation.
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