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Post-Update: Forum Issues
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About this blog

Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

Entries in this blog

 

News!

I’m tickled to share that my paper “Star Trek’s Son of the Royal Navy: Malcolm Reed’s Subversive Voyage in Space, Then and Now” has been accepted for NavyCon 2025, a conference sponsored by the Center for International Maritime Security, King’s College, and the Naval War College. The theme is “The Influence of Navies on Science Fiction, NASA, and the Future of Space,” and the event will be held online on December 6. 🖖 In other news, Happy October! 🎃 On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 766), I praise the Dracula “group read” experience. Here is the episode. ALT
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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The Secret History in May 2026 - Two Seats Left!

Now confirmed! I am so happy to report that in May 2026, I’ll be offering a standalone module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University on Donna Tartt's The Secret History. May 2026: The Secret History by Donna Tartt: Unpacking the “Whydunit” Mystery The Secret History, the 1992 debut novel of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donna Tartt, has its own secret history, including an origin story at an actual college campus and inspiration from a real-life missing person case. The celebrated novel opens with the murder of a Classics student by his eccentric and close-knit group of college friends. The tale then unfolds as an inverted mystery, a “whydunit” rather than a “whodunit,” a narrative that interrogates the nature of obsession, beauty, and education.

Featuring ingredients of the campus novel, the coming-of-age story, and the New England Gothic, The Secret History has long been hailed as a modern classic, and now it’s been rediscovered by a new generation of readers who consider it a foundational text of Dark Academia storytelling. Why does this mystery have such staying power? How does it serve as a turning point in genre history? And how do its haunting themes relate to us and our search for knowledge today? In this module we will explore the fictional Hampden College and peel back the literary layers of The Secret History.
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We’re going back to Panem!

Our Hunger Games series went so well the first time, we’re doing it again! And it’s perfect timing, too, given that the film adaptation of Sunrise on the Reaping will be coming this autumn. You’re invited to join me in SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University to talk about all five books in The Hunger Games series! The first module has been confirmed to run in June 2026. What lessons do the Capitol and Districts have to teach us? What warnings should we heed? What road leads from here to Panem? Over the course of five months, participants in these SPACE modules will read and discuss a modern classic of dystopian storytelling, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

In this hybrid series, each week will include one lecture and one live discussion. The lectures will examine the inspirations behind, allusions in, and questions posed by that month’s novel. In live discussions, participants will share their insights on, interpretations of, and reactions to the story. Together we will consider why this series has spoken to so many readers and explore how its messages remain relevant today. Here is more information.
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