Haunting Catholocism

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In this course, you will encounter vengeful ghosts, eerie buildings, and tortured minds. Haunting Catholicism explores poetry and prose from the ‘Popish Plot’ of 1678 to the end of the nineteenth century through the questions: how does Catholicism ‘haunt’ the British literary imagination after England formally disavowed the Catholic Church under Henry VIII, and does it continue to do so after English Catholic Emancipation in 1829? How has this literary legacy shape ways of thinking about Catholicism? We will explore how Catholicism was a constant, often controversial presence that inspired literary riffs on nationalism, revolution, ghosts, land ownership, the environment, religious corruption, personal spiritual experience, the Sacraments, and the doctrine of Purgatory. While the focus for the course will be British literary depictions of Catholicism, students will also have the opportunity to think about ‘religious haunting’ more broadly. Readings for this course will include works by Andrew Marvell, Elizabeth Inchbald, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.