Learning to Transgress: Embedded Pedagogies of the Gothic

Jan Wellington's retrospective narrative examines a Gothic literature course she taught at Utah Valley State College through the lens of "embedded pedagogy," the notion that within the texts we are drawn to study and teach are pedagogies that influence not only why and how we teach them but also how students respond to them. Wellington notes that the course played out such commonly observed aspects of Gothic texts as shifting subjectivity, confrontations with authority, ambivalence, confusion, even fear: a constellation of qualities she christens (with a nod to bell hooks) "transgression." Under the tutelage of the Gothic's transgressive pedagogy, Wellington relates, she and her students enjoyed liberation and self-reflection. As the course revealed, the Gothic's "outsider" status and genre transgression have a way of confounding students' expectations and wreaking havoc with their attempts to define it. At the same time, readers are drawn to indulge in vicarious horrors while reveling in their own "outsider" status. Empowered by the Gothic's pedagogy of transgression, Wellington's students delightfully—and productively—transcended their "student function," in the process inciting her to reflect on—and even resist—her own role as both victim and upholder of the Gothic edifice that is higher education.