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About this blog

Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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I hope to see you in SPACE!

I’ve taught at Signum University for years, but in addition to offering my classes, I’m now also joining Signum’s SPACE Program (Signum Adult Portals for Adult Continuing Education). I have modules up for candidacy now that I am very excited about! Each will be one month long, with two one-hour meetings per week (one an interactive lecture by me and one a group discussion facilitated by me). All meetings are online. Everyone’s invited! Here’s the schedule: January 2024: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson February 2024: A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand (the first work officially authorized by Shirley Jackson’s estate to respond to The Haunting of Hill House) March 2024: The Last Man by Mary Shelley (a science fiction classic and the most relevant novel one can read while living in “unprecedented times”) Everyone is invited! For more information, please check out this link: Amy H. Sturgis, Upcoming SPACE Modules ALTALTALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 22

Dark Academia novel: Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison (2019) Quote: “So seriously, you never walk the arboretum path alone. Even if it’s not haunted, it’s creepy and not safe. It’s outside the walls.” This last is said with such earnestness I simply nod. “Outside the walls equals not safe alone. Got it.” ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 23

Dark Academia novel: The Raising by Laura Kasischke (2011) Quote: There were goose bumps on her arms now. Wrapping her arms around herself, Mira realized that not only had she shivered, but now she was trembling. She worried that her teeth might begin to chatter. It was truly autumn. The sun had clearly slipped a few notches down on the horizon, and the light on the leaves was amber now, not white, not even golden, as it had been the week before, and a breeze seemed to be pouring through the centuries-old window of Godwin Honors Hall despite the fact they were all closed. That cold breeze seemed to pour in a steady stream down the hallway, bathing her. “I know you’re an expert on death,” the boy said to her, “and dying, and the undead.”     ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 7

Dark Academia novel: The Cloisters by Katy Hays (2022) Quote: Death always visited me in August. A slow and delicious month we turned into something swift and brutal. The change, quick as a card trick. I should have seen it coming. The way the body would be laid out on the library floor, the way the gardens would be torn apart by the search. The way our jealousy, greed, and ambition were waiting to devour us all, like a snake eating its own tail. The ouroboros.   ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 9

Dark Academia novel: The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue (2020) Quote: The cabinet was filled with curious and bizarre items. There was a jar with a dead tarantula in it, a case of butterflies and one with insects, a chain made of teeth; there were stamps, an ivory horn, a photo of a two-headed calf, an old jewelry box, some gemstones, a miniature violin and other jars filled with liquid which was too murky to see what was inside. I chose a skull. It was small, like that of a child. Mr. Lavelle nodded as he handed it to me. And for what was not the first time, I felt like he was a seer and that everything that would come to happen he had already foreseen. I held the skull in my hands. I imagined, for a moment, I could squeeze it and it would shatter. I have not thought about this for many years, but now I wonder if I should not have chosen the skull. That perhaps if I had just picked a gemstone, things would have been different. I would not have become what I did. But then I remember the way I felt as they both, he and Victoria, looked at me, and I think perhaps not. It was all inevitable. ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 6

Dark Academia novel: The Honeys by Ryan La Sala (2022) Quote: I don’t fear the dark. I know the dark, and it knows me. Within it, I’m safe from the sun’s lovely illusions. I know what I’ve always known: The monsters worth fearing are the ones that are dangerous enough to hide in daylight. ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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<p>I’m delighted to share that I’ll be giving a...

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be giving a paper at the upcoming Realizing Resistance Episode III: The Expanding Universe conference on Star Wars. My talk will be “‘They Walked without Speaking’: GUARDIANS OF THE WHILLS, ANDOR, and Local Resistance. More on the conference is here: dcsco-op.org/rriii/ ALTALT
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eldritchhobbit

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Consumed by the Campus

I’m delighted to share that I will be presenting my paper “Consumed by the Campus: Dark Academia, the Gothic Imagination, and the Missing Student” at Sheffield Gothic’s “Consuming the Gothic” conference in November! ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia (Part 2) Is Coming Soon!

In 2021, my Halloween Countdown focused on 31 Days of Dark Academia. I enjoyed that so much that I’ll be back in October 2023 to spotlight 31 different and new works of Dark Academia! As in 2021, I will be using the #31DaysofDA tag. Each day I’ll be posting a different DA title with a haunting/atmospheric quote. I hope you’ll enjoy the recommendations! ALT In the meantime, here are a few links related to my own Dark Academia-related doings, FYI! In 2022, I had the great delight of teaching a graduate course on Dark Academia for Signum University. This experience led me to write the 2023 article “Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951),” which appears at Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century. I continue to be fascinated by — and am working on a new project related to — the key features of Dark Academia literature. To my mind, these include the use of Gothic modes of storytelling (as I define Dark Academia as a subset of the Gothic), a focus on an academic setting and educational experience, the cultivation of a dark mood with an emphasis on death, and an interrogation of imbalances in and abuses of power. For a longer discussion about defining the Dark Academia genre (as opposed to the aesthetic), there’s my discussion of DA 1) in my “Looking Back on Genre History segment on Episode 671 of the StarShipSofa podcast and 2) in my essay "Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia” in the forthcoming Potterversity anthology. I have a new project in the works, as well, and will be discussing that soon! Right now, I can say that I’ll be giving a related paper (“Consumed by the Campus: Dark Academia, the Gothic Imagination, and the Missing Student”) in November at Sheffield Gothic’s “Consuming the Gothic” conference. I hope to see some of you there (virtually)! For now, I hope you will enjoy my 2023 Halloween Countdown starting tomorrow! The most wonderful time of the year is almost here! ?
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 18

Dark Academia novel: River of Ashes by Alexandrea Weis and Lucas Astor (2022) Quote: He waited for the animal to charge. Instead, it turned and raced into the brush. Smug with his victory, he turned back toward The Abbey. At the iron gate, he raised his head to the night sky. The stars weren’t twinkling, and there was no moon. Perfect. He cut across the field of high grass. Not far from the cells, the lone howl of a dog stopped him in his tracks. Silence. Seconds ticked by, but the only sounds were the chirp of the crickets and the occasional croak of frogs. When the dogs appear, death is near. He chuckled. Maybe the dogs knew what he had planned.  ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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<p>I had a fantastic time talking with brillian...

I had a fantastic time talking with brilliant hosts Ashley Thomas and Mike Slamer of the WE ARE STARFLEET podcast about the new anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, which I co-edited with Emily Strand. Thanks so much for a wonderful chat! ? Listen to the episode here.
ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 13

Dark Academia novel: Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo (2021) Quote: “This is where it gets interesting. The second son loves this girl so much he decides to step onto an unholy path. Now the story varies, but in the one my mama told me, he makes a deal. He takes his youngest sister, goes to a crossroad on the property past the witching hour, and he waits until some evil comes to him. He looks that evil square in the face and offers it his sister in return for his wife.” … “He kills his sister,” Sam guessed. “Of course he does,” Mr. McCormick said.     ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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