A haunted virtual literary tour
for the month of Halloween!

You’re lost in the halls of a forgotten castle. Your steps leave prints in the dust, marking your progress as faithfully as fallen snow. As you climb from the dungeons to the highest tower, you hear muffled footsteps at your heels, but whenever you turn back, there are only mirrors and shadows behind you.

You’re investigating a house that is anything but empty. It’s almost too full - of strangers, intimates, and worst of all, yourself. The longer you stay, the more at home you feel, though sometimes you worry that you know this house too well. Or perhaps, the house knows you too well. You don’t think you’ll ever leave.

You came to the forest to see the oaks, but as you walk deeper, you see briar thickets so dense they block the light and your path. You look for a way around them, only to realize they encircle something, holding the secret close to their heart. When you try to push through them, you realize they’re sharp as knives.

You wander through the labyrinth of city streets. The tall windows of the library glint at you from above, and conversation and laughter spill from the open doors of coffee shops and pubs. But the light falls differently today, and the laughter has a sharp edge of panic. Every face you pass is a stranger who could be anyone… anything.

Your home amongst the stars just might be cursed. You pull down the industrial shutters to block out the heat of foreign suns and ward yourself against your pale neighbors who thirst for blood and marrow. When you leave your lab at the end of the day to visit the ossuary, you realize what you interred is walking…

+ Seminars!

What makes a story Gothic? 

A big part of the Gothic is where the story happens. The Gothic is strongly rooted in place, the rooms and forests and streets where the plot unfolds. You just know when you’re in a Gothic space. You feel it in the burgundy velvet curtains, the creaking stairs, the tangle of abandoned books and cables.

What makes a place Gothic? A delicate cocktail of folklore and fear. What if the folkloric past came back to haunt the present?

This can happen almost anywhere, from crumbling castles to the halls of a spaceship.

In Gothic Realms, we’ll explore all kinds of Gothic spaces - castles, haunted houses, forests, cities, and even outer space (yes, that's 5 modules this time!) Think of it as a haunted virtual literary tour for the month of Halloween. And on this exploration, we’ll uncover why these places - and these stories - matter and why they continue to entice us, hundreds of years after the first Gothic stories were written. 

This version of the course includes our optional SEMINARS! You can 100% take the course without these (just click here to go to that option!), but we also wanted to create an option for those who want to go a bit deeper, something that would function like a university seminar. In this option, we'll have five additional meetings in which we discuss five additional long-form texts that simply don't fit into the lecture format (or the regular course's expected reading workload.) The seminars give us additional course time to talk about these extra texts, but, more importantly, they give YOU the chance to talk more too!

Also, we are complete nerds about the Gothic. We love it more than we can say (our bookcases speak for themselves), and we both specialized in the Gothic while earning ours PhDs. 

We’ll be real with you: it’s fall, it’s been a long couple of years, and we want to teach this thing that makes us ridiculously happy.

The Gates of Carterhaugh Are Open:

(but only until October 6th at midnight ET!)

Looking for the version of this course without the seminars? Click here!

Our Modules:

Each week of the course will feature a deep dive into one of these FIVE topics
(that's right, we're so excited about this one that we're doing an additional full week of lessons!)

Here's What's Included

• Five LIVE video lectures with us that you can participate in live or watch later, as you please, during which we'll talk about the week's readings and check in with you! Our lectures and discussions are college-level… but definitely not snooze fests! During these live talks, we'll support you two-on-one, answering questions and diving deep into how the readings can help you re-story your week. These lectures will air every Tuesday at 7PM ET via Crowdcast - October 11th, 18th, and 25th, November 1st and 15th ($200 Per Live Event = A $1000 Value!)

• Five Additional LIVE video seminars with us that you can ALSO participate in live or watch later (though we highly recommend attending live for the best experience!), during which we'll talk about the week's longer additional readings in a college-style seminar course! The seminars will happen every Wednesday at 7PM ET via Zoom - October 12th, 19th, 26th, and November 2nd and 16th ($200 Per Live Event = A $1000 Value!)

• All regular course readings as PDFs and/or Links (Minus One!) - We always try to include ways to access the stories that star in our lectures, and we choose our stories with care. Some will be familiar and some will likely be wholly new to you, but they are all worth examining. Prepare to be fascinated and delighted with tales from all over the world in this CUSTOM collection made specifically for this course! (A $15 Value!)
• NOTE: You do have to purchase or borrow the novella Sabella by Tanith Lee to fully participate in Week Five of the regular course, and you will also need copies of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (available for free online), In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, Dracula by Bram Stoker (available for free online), and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (we'd love it if you could get through the sequel, Harrow the Ninth as well, but this is optional!) for the seminars!

• Discussion questions for learning and self-discovery - Even if you don't want to join the Facebook group, we'll make sure you have access to our discussion questions. These questions will help guide your reflections and determine how the folklore we discuss applies to your own journey and can help you achieve the results you’re looking for. (A $200 Value!)

• Access to our private Facebook group just for members of "Gothic Realms" - While participation in the course Facebook group is optional, it really is one of the best parts of the course. We have an amazing community of kind, creative, and very smart students, and the discussions that unfold in this space are always a delight and incredibly supportive. In fact, we learn new things from our students every time! (At LEAST a $600 Value... But Honestly? Priceless.)

That’s over $2900 in value… but you only pay $447!!

Curious to see what our videos are like?

Check out this short clip from the first week of our course "Rapunzel's Circle I"!

[The audio/video quality is a little wonky - to get this clip onto this page, Brittany resorted to some very creative tech magic. You can expect clearer sound in our live lectures. In this clip, you can see us responding to our students in real-time. We're reading from the live chat that happens alongside each live video!]

FAQ

• "Um, what exactly IS Carterhaugh?" - The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic is an award-winning online school dedicated to classes on fairy tales, folklore, and all things fantastic. It was created by Sara and Brittany in 2016 as a place for those who dreamed of elven battles while studying economics, those who have always sworn they could see ghosts, and those who longed for a school of magic to send them an unexpected acceptance letter. We aim to use our knowledge and passion for these subjects to share their wonder, solidify their importance in society, and spread a bit of magic into the world. Want to know more? Check out our "About" page by clicking here!

• "When will I hear from you/get access to the first lesson?" - You will hear from us each week on Friday, for 5 weeks, starting October 7th, 2022 (with a skip of November 8th) - we generally get things out by noon, but sometimes there are evil technology fairies! Rest assured that we'll keep you updated if that happens though. We will send an e-mail and post in the private Facebook group! You'll also get our live video lectures each Tuesday of those 5 weeks at 7PM ET!

• "What if I can’t look at any of the materials that day / can't come to the live lecture?" - You do NOT have to watch the videos on any specific date – they are yours to view whenever is best for you! This is one of the many reasons why online courses work so well – they can fit everyone’s schedule :). The replays of each live lecture will remain up throughout the course, so you can catch up whenever you'd like!

• “I’m just a folklore fan. I don’t want to ruin my enjoyment with a bunch of academic stuff.” - We are the last people in the WORLD who would ruin your enjoyment of folklore and literature!! Believe us, we’re just as passionate about the beauty and wonder of these tales, and we know that part of that wonder lies in their mystery. We will never tell you what a tale “means." These tales are meant to be explored, meant to inspire personal meaning. We’ll give you folkloric history, and how the tales have been interpreted in the past, and add a twist of Gothic flavor, but we’ll never tell you what you “have to” believe about any folkloric story and we’re CERTAINLY not the kind of professors who are gleeful about “ruining” folklore for people!

• “Guys, I love this, but money is SO tight right now….” - We understand this feel so hard. Money is tight for so many. This is why we’ve made this 5 (yes, 5!) module course as affordable as possible AND packed in all the enchantment, gothic glamour, stories, and community you crave right now. We're also offering three different payment plans (and an early bird deal! And coupons if you're on our Patreon!) to help you find an option that works. Our school is an investment, and it’s one that you deserve - we know our community and the magic we make together is worth it, and we would love for you to join us.

• “How involved are you guys? Is this just a thing where I get access to a bunch of stuff and then good luck?” - NOPE! We are 100% involved in our courses from start to finish. Our students always rave about how accessible we are, how quickly we respond, and how we make everyone feel welcome in our school. We’re always jumping in to answer questions and offer encouragement in our private course Facebook group, and we’re also available via e-mail anytime you need help with anything (or just want to share an insight privately with us!)

• “I hate Facebook. Do I HAVE to participate?” - The private Facebook group is really how the course community comes together. Discussion is incredibly active, people are always extraordinarily kind, and it’s seriously like no other discussion form we have ever seen. So while it is absolutely not required, it really does add to your enjoyment of the course if you participate there! We’ve had students make fake names just for our courses before though, so you don’t have to embrace all of Facebook to be a part of our private group! All of this said, if you really, really don’t want to be a part of Facebook in any way, you are free to simply enjoy the community in the live lectures, and talk to us one-on-one via e-mail if you have any questions, want to respond to discussion questions, or have any other thoughts you want to share!

As always, if you have additional questions at any time, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]!

Featured In:

Also?

We are feminists and disability scholars who support the LGBTQ+ community and believe that Black lives matter.

Period.

The gates of Carterhaugh are open...

Looking for the version of this course without the seminars? Click here!

If You've Read This Far...

If you've read this far, clearly something about our school resonates for you. You feel it in your spirit.

You can be the magical soul you want to be. Art and stories can help you get there - yes, even the spooky ones.

Join us at Carterhaugh - you won't regret it.