Welcome hauntings: 'The Odyssey', 'How I Became a Ghost', and subjectivity production in English language arts curriculum

Abstract

Analyzing 'How I Became a Ghost' and 'The Odyssey' through the lenses of the Gothic, temporality, and memorial/monument studies offers new ways of understanding how subjectivity production and the United States' nation-building project function in English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms. In particular, this study analyzes how these curricular offerings consume and produce human-ness and non-being through alt-right, Indigenous, and settler-colonial temporalities. This study gives practicing teachers and scholars a method to help students form a Gothic historical consciousness as a framework of connection, communication, and healing in order to combat curricular violence.