{"id":127081,"date":"2023-05-08T00:03:58","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T04:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=127081"},"modified":"2023-05-07T11:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T15:44:32","slug":"u-florida-class-examines-white-terror-in-frankenstein-and-other-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/u-florida-class-examines-white-terror-in-frankenstein-and-other-classics\/","title":{"rendered":"U. Florida class examines ‘white terror’ in Frankenstein and other classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Course is taught by professor who wrote dissertation about \u2018horrifying whiteness\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A University of Florida African American Studies course interprets the horror genre based on \u201cracial identity and oppression\u201d while using materials on \u201cwhiteness,\u201d \u201cblack feminism,\u201d and \u201cqueering personhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The course, \u201cBlack Horror, White Terror,\u201d explores \u201cthe relationship between horror and Black literary modes and traditions focusing on key moments that depict fears of Blackness and\/or the terror associated with being Black in America,\u201d according to a spring 2023 syllabus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Students in the course must read classic works by 19th-century white authors to study how they have \u201caffected racialized discourses.\u201d These include Mary Shelley\u2019s \u201cFrankenstein,” Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Murders in the Rue Morgue,\u201d and others.<\/p>\n

Part of this inquiry includes reading an academic article<\/a> titled, \u201cThe Power and Horror of Whiteness,\u201d which argues that Poe was \u201chaunted\u201d by black people based on his fiction writings. The course includes two other resources with \u201cwhiteness\u201d in the title.<\/p>\n

The College Fi<\/em>x emailed Professor Julia Mollenthiel, who currently teaches the course, and asked what is meant by the term \u201cwhiteness,\u201d how it is portrayed in the course, and why it is necessary to include material on queer sexuality. She did not respond to two inquiries sent in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

The Fix<\/em> emailed the same questions to David Canton, director of UF\u2019s African American Studies program, and also asked how the course benefits the program. Canton didn\u2019t respond to two inquiries sent in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

Another required reading considers<\/a> \u201cthe Marxist and the feminist location\u201d of \u201cFrankenstein … in the social and psychological context of the times” and claims that Shelley\u2019s famous monster \u201cparallels \u2026 the racial stereotypes of the age.\u201d<\/p>\n

The course also examines how black authors have \u201cused the horror aesthetic as a means of countering white constructions of Blackness in the horror\/Gothic genre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of this analysis centers around the 1991 novel “The Gilda Stories” by Jewelle Gomez. The course\u2019s required readings explore<\/a> the novel\u2019s implications<\/a> for \u201cAfrofuturism and black feminism\u201d and \u201cqueering personhood in the neo-slave narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bolded and underlined section of the syllabus states, \u201cNo lesson is intended to espouse, promote, advance, inculcate, or compel a particular feeling, perception, viewpoint, or belief,\u201d potentially in reference to the state\u2019s pending<\/a> Stop WOKE Act.<\/p>\n

The course bears the same name as Mollenthiel\u2019s dissertation, which she wrote while earning a doctorate in English literature with a focus on African American works at the University of Miami. It similarly viewed the horror genre through a racial lens.<\/p>\n

“My concept of horrifying whiteness offers an avenue for Black resistance by disrupting the centuries-old whiteness as innocence and blackness as culpability narrative; and my concept of crippling fear versus empowering fear offers an opportunity to probe the advantages\/disadvantages of Black fear,\u201d she wrote in the abstract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mollenthiel plans to release a book<\/a> with the same title to the University of Miami\u2019s library this year.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>Louisiana universities explore use of ‘racist tropes’ in ‘black horror film’<\/a><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n

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