Course info

The course explores the origins, the texts, and the influence of the American writer of horror and weird fiction H. P. Lovecraft. The goal of this course is to introduce the students to this significant literary figure who leaps out of Gothic fiction and explores the potential for a completely new kind of macabre evocation which deeply reflect American modernity through profoundly existential themes.

Course participants will gain a perspective on an author who was not particularly successful during his lifetime but who has since, because of his literary experimentation and creative force, become one of the most widely influential American authors, having acquired a cult status and attracted an ever-growing readership. Furthermore, exploration of Lovecraft’s specific outlook on matters such as technological progress, scientific endeavor, the condition of the human subject, and sense of self, historicity, and one’s racial identity provide students with an opportunity to explore the shifting perspective on his works in the context of sociocultural development of the 20^th and early 21^st century.