This colloquium focuses on terror, guilt, and the supernatural in novels, short stories, plays, and poems from the18th century, when the genre originated, till now, when it still flourishes.  Lately I have added a small selection of films to the literature we study: the original Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and the original Haunting (adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.)  Authors include Horace Walpole, the infamous Matthew G. Lewis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, and a carefully selected writer of Harlequin romance.  Students will write four short essays; choices of topics will be provided.  If a student wishes, she may omit one essay and instead lead the class in discussion of a work she particularly likes.  Students are encouraged (though not required) to be creative and amusing in their essay writing: they may, if they wish, write an original Gothic story or a parody of a Gothic novel.  The class ordinarily turns out to be a good deal of fun.