In this interdisciplinary course, students will be able to apply knowledge acquired from their major fields of study to the interpretation of events

 

and the analysis of characters in 19th century French short stories of the Fantastic genre.  The Fantastic genre depends on the hesitation

 

between the supernatural and natural laws when explaining the cause of horrific events.  Left with no reasonable, empirical explanation, readers

 

must ponder the possibility of a supernatural causality.  However, setting the stories in relation to recent advances made in the fields of biology,

 

psychology, neuroscience and criminology may open up new ways of interpreting the events in the stories.  Recently proposed theories such as

 

the Multiverse Hypothesis and other theories concerning underdeveloped amygdalae, genetics and neurological impulses may shed a

 

contemporary light on the acts perpetrated by characters in the stories.   In addition to studying traditional analytical approaches to the genre,

 

students will apply their personal base of knowledge thus gaining a fresh and dynamic cognizance of literature.  Guest speakers include a

 

criminologist and a scientist.