American Psycho: Disease, Doctors, and Discontents (Pre-1900 AL) What constitutes a pathological response to the pressures of modernity?  How do pathological protagonists drive readers toward the precariousness of their own physical and mental health?  The readings for this class center on the provisional nature of sanity and the challenges to bodily health in a world of modern commerce, media, and medical diagnoses.  We will begin with 19th century texts and their engagement with seemingly "diseased" responses to urbanization, new forms of work, and new structures of the family and end with contemporary fictional psychopaths engaged in attacks on the world of images we inhabit in the present.  Nineteenth century texts will likely include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.  Later  20th-century works will likely include Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted, and Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho.

Vermont Life’s Vermont: A Collaborative Web Project Students in this course will work collaboratively to build an online history project aimed at a wide audience.  Since 1946, Vermont Life magazine has created particular images of the landscape, culture, and recreational possibilities in the state.  Our goal will be to construct a website that examines the evolution of these images and the meaning of the state over time, paying particular attention to consumerism, the environment, tourism, urban-rural contrasts, local food movements, and the ways that race, class, and gender influence all of these.  The course is open to all students and requires collaborative work but not any pre-existing technological expertise.

American Psycho: Disease, Doctors, and Discontents What constitutes a pathological response to the pressures of modernity?  How do pathological protagonists drive readers toward the precariousness of their own physical and mental health?  The readings for this class center on the provisional nature of sanity and the challenges to bodily health in a world of modern commerce, media, and medical diagnoses.  We will begin with 19th century texts and their engagement with seemingly "diseased" responses to urbanization, new forms of work, and new structures of the family and end with contemporary fictional psychopaths engaged in attacks on the world of images we inhabit in the present.  Nineteenth century texts will likely include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.  Later  20th-century works will likely include Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted, and Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho.

Gothic and Horror This course examines the forms and meanings of the Gothic and horror over the last 250 years in the West. How have effects of fright, terror, or awe been achieved over this span and why do audiences find such effects attractive? Our purpose will be to understand the generic structures of horror and their evolution in tandem with broader cultural changes. Course materials will include fiction, film, readings in the theory of horror, architecture, visual arts, and electronic media.

Science Fiction Time travel, aliens, androids, robots, corporate and political domination, reimaginings of race, gender, sexuality and the human body--these concerns have dominated science fiction over the last 150 years.  But for all of its interest in the future, science fiction tends to focus on technologies and social problems relevant to the period in which it is written. In this course, we'll work to understand both the way that authors imagine technology's role in society and how those imaginings create meanings for science and its objects of study and transformation.  Some likely reading and films include Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Ridley Scott, Blade Runner, and works by William Gibson, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler and other contemporary writers. (Students who have taken FYSE 1162 are not eligible to register for this course).

The Graphic Novel In this course we will study some of the most widely respected graphic novels produced in the last thirty years. Our purpose will be to understand how the form works and is structured by its dual, but sometimes competing, interests in the verbal and the visual, and to think about distinct styles of illustration.  We will also think about how landmark examples have shaped the form.  Working with software designed for the purpose, students will use photographs to produce short comics of their own.  Possible texts include: Alan Moore, Watchmen; Art Spiegelman, Maus; Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan; Alison Bechdel, Fun Home.

The Graphic Novel and the Postmodern City  From dystopian visions of isolation and alienation to utopian illustrations of soaring towers and integrated communities, comics and graphic novels since the 1970s have represented a range of cityscapes and ways of living in them. Our efforts will focus on understanding how comics work as a cultural form distinct from others and how various artists and writers have imagined urban space in relatively recent cultural history.  Some texts might include: Daniel Clowes, Ghost World; Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta; Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do; and G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphono, Ms. Marvel.

Posthuman Medicine: Morals, Machines, and Bodies Medical treatments and technologies now keep people alive when they once surely would have died. But the increasing power of medicine has also raised nightmarish possibilities of lives controlled, squandered, or sacrificed to a system that often alienates patients, is centered on profit, and has a long history of treating marginal populations recklessly. How do science fiction writers, doctors, film makers, memoirists, and healthcare corporations portray an ever more medicalized vision of human experience and human bodies? Texts and films for the course will include HG Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Atul Gawande, Complications; Octavia Butler, Clay’s Ark; Michael Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Karen Russell, Sleep Donation, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go.

Michael Newbury

Reviews and ratings for Michael Newbury at Middlebury College.Michael Newbury teaches American Psycho, Vermont Life Collab Web, Gothic and Horror and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Michael Newbury good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

Absolutely loved this course! I am a big fan of horror for sure, but just was great. There are pretty frequent readings but you don't neccesarily have to do all of them. Generally speaking I would only do the readings if they seemed really interesting or important to discussion. I felt he graded fairly, very chill and wants the students to be interested in the work they're doing. 

Professor Michael Newbury’s Gothic and Horror Film class was an absolute highlight, offering a deep dive into the chilling worlds of horror and the gothic tradition in cinema. Professor Newbury’s enthusiasm for the genre is contagious, and he brings a wealth of knowledge that makes exploring horror’s themes, aesthetics, and cultural impacts both exciting and intellectually stimulating.

The course covers a fascinating range of films—from early black-and-white gothic classics to modern horror. Professor Newbury encourages students to analyze these films not just as entertainment but as reflections of cultural anxieties and social commentary. The readings, which blend film theory with gothic literature and cultural criticism, are well-chosen to deepen understanding, although the workload is moderately heavy. Expect to read several articles each week, but each reading is carefully curated to support class discussions.

This is a light class in terms of workload while being entertaining and interesting. Prof. Newbury is a super fair grader who really just wants to hear from his students. In this class, you must respond to three discussion posts before the six week mark, and three after. There is a paper due towards the middle of the term and a final paper. There is one group project where you recreate a short scene from a movie. There are also screenings you must attend. While the screenings can be inconvenient to go to, this is a fun and interesting class for anyone who likes or wants to see some horror movies. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of discussion. 