Co-instructors: Colton Saylor and Candace Waid

Using Native American literature as a focal lens,  “Beyond the ‘Burial Ground’” examines the critical intersections of horror, race, and identity. Course readings include early American texts where horror is used in attempts to justify native persecution and plots of genocide alongside works by contemporary American Indian writers who deploy horror  to unearth living concerns: violence against nature, native sovereignty, assimilation, and survivance. Authors include, among others, Louis Owens, Linda Hogan, Gerald Vizenor, and Sherman Alexie.  Novels and essays by these authors will be punctuated by selections ranging from slave narratives (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass) to Western perspectives on the uses of Horror (H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, George Romero).