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Twilight Zone, The

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"The Twilight Zone" was ostensibly a science-fiction show, but it actually encompassed an array of genres, topics and themes. The show explored such issues as racism, death and dying, families, aging, time travel, the effects of technology on society, and many more. Rod Serling's immensely popular anthology always relied on great writing, and we will discuss particular episodes as literature (themes, point-of-view, symbolism, etc.) Further, we will examine not only episodes but also works of literature to which they relate or allude.

Course Details
Prefix: 
UCO
Course Number: 
1200
Section Number(s) and Day/Times Taught: 
111: TR 9:30am - 10:45am
169: TR 11:00am-12:15pm
183: TR 2:00pm-3:15pm
704: MW 2:00pm-3:15pm
Term: 
Fall 2024
Categories: 
The Arts
Global Issues
Student Success
Instructor(s)

Donald Presnell

Dr. Don Presnell holds MA degrees in English and Spanish from Appalachian State University and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from App State's Reich College of Education. He is the author of Wandering The Wild Wild West: A Critical Analysis of the CBS Television Series (2021) and co-author of A Critical History of Television's The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964 (1998). He has created and taught multiple iterations of First Year Seminar, including “The Narrative Art of Comics”; “The Twilight Zone”; “Doctor Who: TARDIS Travels in General Education”; “Dr. Seuss and Y(our) World”; “The Simple Complexity of Peanuts: Exploring the Perennially Popular Comic Strip”; and “The X-Files: Science Fiction Search for Truth.”

He has been nominated for both the Brantz Award for Outstanding Teaching in First Year Seminar (2012, 2019) and the Harvey R. Durham Outstanding Freshman Advocate Award (2014, 2017, 2018) at Appalachian State University. He is currently the Director of the Common Reading Program and a Senior Lecturer in the First Year Seminar program. His interests include multimodality; literature; comics and graphic novels; film and television studies; English and Spanish; pedagogy and instructional design; educational leadership; and baseball.