From Puginesque to Punk: An Introduction to the Gothic

Students are invited to critically engage with the ubiquitous, if unstable, category of the Gothic represented by a variety of media created by diverse authors in different genres and languages, sacred and profane, and to share the experience Gothic spaces, sounds, and images. The Gothic's origins span, by constant reiteration, from queer sociality on the Continent in the eighteenth century, to Anti-Catholic rhetoric in Britain in the next hundred years, to the secret signs of the guilds of masons building the great cathedrals of the middle ages. The Gothic simultaneously embodies both Christ and Count Dracula while enthralling scholarly and popular culture in unprecedented ways. An awareness of the Gothic is also to appreciate much of the built environment at the University of Toronto, and the city that surrounds it, to decode the intentions of the architects and patrons who shaped the landscape. Eight centuries, or more, of the Gothic are introduced, emphasizing a variety of themes considered from the vantage of the historian, including visuality, monstrosity, the vampire, corporeality, the Eucharist, and architecture.