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Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 2

Dark Academia work: “Presentation of an Intact Specimen” by Premee Mohamed, from Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia edited by Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle (2023) Quote: No. This one is mine. This museum is mine. I worked too hard for this, and it belongs to me and if he intends to take anything of mine, I will not show the restraint I did when we were students. No one is watching me now. Only God, so they say; and He will, I think, forgive me this. Surely it is not a sin to remove a sinner from the face of the Earth to prevent future sins. Think of everything Bainbridge has done. Think of the oceans of blood on his hands. And the tiny, tiny bit that would be on hers. ___ It was madness, it was all madness; but she examined the madness from every angle and it seemed good and sound, like an old tool of forged iron. She saw no weaknesses in it. It was merely the removal of something worthless from the museum — it was curation. She and Godfrey could find a more suitable assistant. It would only benefit the institution. ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: Dark Academia 2023, Day 14

Dark Academia novel: Don’t Breathe a Word by Jordyn Taylor (2021) Quote: “Yesterday” starts to play again from the beginning, but it’s a hell of a lot eerier as it becomes the backdrop to the story I typed on the next slide: “In 1962, Hardwick sent a small group of students underground to test a nuclear fallout shelter. Six went down, but only five survived…” ALT
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Halloween 2022: Day 19

Song: “Matty Groves” Quote: So Matty struck the very first blow, and he hurt Lord Orland sore.
Lord Orland struck the very next blow, and Matty struck no more.
And then Lord Orland took his wife, and he sat her on his knee,
Saying, “Who do you like the best of us, Matty Groves or me?”
And then up spoke his own dear wife, never heard to speak so free,
“I’d rather a kiss from dead Matty’s lips than you or your finery.” Lord Orland he jumped up and loudly he did bawl,
He struck his wife right through the heart and pinned her against the wall.
“A grave, a grave, ” Lord Orland cried, “to put these lovers in,
But bury my lady at the top for she was of noble kin.” Read the complete lyrics. Listen to the performance of Alela Diane and Alina Hardin…
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 25

Dark Academia novel: The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman (2020) Quote: Every year the coast guard holds an assembly about the dangers of crossing the causeway that only seems to increase its appeal. When I get out of the car I can hear the dense pines that stand sentinel over the peninsula creaking in the salt-laced wind… and something else. A sound like a girl crying. I freeze and listen. It could just be the wind in the trees or the mournful sigh of the tide retreating over the rocks below the coastal path, but then, peering through the fog, I catch a glimpse of something white that looks like a girl running… I remember the ghosts who are said to haunt these woods.  ALT
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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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Halloween 2022: Day 9

Song: “Ghost of Norma Jean” Quote: When you see another cross By the road where she is lost, You’ll know that she has some company. Listen to the Steep Canyon Rangers’ performance…
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Everyone is invited!

Everyone is invited on September 9 at noon Eastern for this free online event hosted by the The Digital Cultural Studies Cooperative! Join us for a Book Talk with the editors of the new anthology STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY. We’ll be joined by the co-editors and contributors to discuss this exciting collection of essays that offer a compelling new take on the familiar and not-so-familiar corners of the Star Wars universe and media megatext. Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away | Book Launch
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 20

Today we begin the final part of our countdown this year with texts (that are available online) about Halloween itself! Today’s work is Halloween, A Romaunt, with Lays, Meditative and Devotional (1845) by H.S. Parsons. Read it here. Quote: If souls, once more, to these their haunts on earth, Can come, dear Lady, from the Spirit-land, I ask’d thee,—would it spoil thine hour of mirth, To see some sudden shape before thee stand! And a cold shudder told me, and thine hand Press’d dearer to mine own. But then said I, Oh! if thy friend were dead, and could command Some midnight hour to visit thee; reply, Say, would it grieve thee, Love, if love could never die! ALT
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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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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 12

Dark Academia novel: Very Bad People by Kit Frick (2022) Quote: Tuesday morning, three classrooms have been ghosted. All over campus, there are whispers. It’s happening again. And I heard they make initiates drink blood. And it’s just a stupid hoax. The teachers talk too. I bet I know who is responsible. And at least they’re not defacing school property. And there are proper channels here at Tipton. Three students have completed their initiation rite. Which leaves seven of us. ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 1

Halloween season is here! Since 2005, I’ve been observing a Halloween countdown on whatever social media I was using at the time with a daily post throughout October. These days I am primarily on Mastodon (so if you’re in the Fediverse, or connected to it via Threads or some other means, please say hi!), but I also post on Tumblr, my Goodreads blog, and Dreamwidth, among other places.  I look forward to sharing October with you! Happy Countdown to Halloween 2024! This year I will focus on Halloween-friendly texts (long and short) available for free online. I will try to lean away from the usual suspects and, I hope, bring you some treats that you will enjoy! This countdown will have several separate parts. The first part is inspired by Bridget M. Marshall’s excellent 2021 work Industrial Gothic: Workers, Exploitation and Urbanization in Transatlantic Nineteenth-Century Literature. In her book, Marshall notes that dark and dreadful Gothic novels were very popular with the “mill girls” who worked in 19th-century factories. I’d like to start the countdown by recommending some of the shiver-inducing texts these women reported reading and savoring. ALT Here begins the Day 1 post! One of the most popular titles with women working in factories in Manchester and Lancashire, UK, was Mysteries of London (1844-1845) by G.W.M. Reynolds. Read it here. Quote: “Perhaps there is no other cry in the world, save that of ‘fire!’ more calculated to spread terror and dismay, when falling suddenly and unexpectedly upon the ears of a party of revellers, than that of ‘A corpse! a corpse!’”
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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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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 11

Dark Academia novel: Shadow of the Lions by Christopher Swann (2017) Quote: The two lions crouched on top of their pedestals, frozen in preparation to leap. One was snarling, its stone teeth menacing in the late-afternoon shadows, while the other stared out with disdain at the broad sweep of empty soybean fields that lay just across the state highway, a disdain made all the more pointed because the lion was missing its left eye. The missing eye was their only major flaw. A myth of swift and terrible justice falling on those who harmed the lions had shielded them further disfigurement over the years. Blackburne legend had it that the student who chiseled out the left eye as a class prank in 1947 died that same week, drowning in the Shenandoah Creek when his canoe tipped over. Since then… the lions were left alone. ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!                                                           Today’s text is “It’s Halloween” from The Philadelphia Inquirer on 10/31/1898. Read the article here. Quote: “Goblins and fairies, good and evil, will be running amuck to-night, if the old Halloween traditions do not fail…. Every one may be both superstitious and sentimental to-night.” ALT It’s Halloween headline: “Goblins and Fairies Will Be Roaming Abroad Tonight”
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Halloween 2022: Day 18

Song: “Blackadders Cove” Quote: I tell you a secret that nobody knows:
Her body’s still layin’ in Blackadders Cove. Read the complete lyrics. Listen to NewFound Road’s performance…
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Visit Hill House with me in October 2024!

Just in case you’d like your October to be extra haunted, I’ll be back in SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. Voting is now open for my October module, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Early voters will determine when our live discussions will meet online. I had so much fun with this before, we’re doing it all over again! More information is here.
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 21

Today’s text is Myra’s Well: A Tale of All-Hallow-E’en (1883) by George Francis Dawson. Read it here. Quote: It is the night of all nights of the year, When ghosts and warlocks haunt the troubled earth, And disembodied spirits visit us— Spirits of good and evil from the dead, Fresh from the angel hosts and from the damned, And from the vast profound betwixt the two… ALT
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