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Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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Halloween 2020, Day 2

Here’s a Halloween-relevant article by Kim Taylor Blakemore at CrimeReads: “The New Gothic: Feminist and Unapologetic - Tracing the Evolution of Gothic Heroines from the Mid-20th Century to the Present Day Through 7 Novels.” 
On a related note, this is a timely reading list from Emily Wenstrom at Book Riot: “5 Modern Authors Upholding the Gothic Feminist Tradition in 2020.” One of the works recommended is one of the stellar “must read” novels of the season, Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. Here, have a taste: - from Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020) Chilling, no? A longer excerpt is available here: “Read an Excerpt from Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Haunted House Mystery.”
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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 17: In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead (2021)
Quote: It turns out the real you is a quilt, made up of the light and the dark. The life you’ve lived in sunshine and your shadow life, stretching underneath the surface of your mind like a deep underwater world, exerting invisible power. You are a living, breathing story made up of the moments in time you cherish, all strung together, and those you hide. The moments that seem lost. Until the day they’re not.
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eldritchhobbit

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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 30: The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (2021)
Quote 1: And when you’re truly scared, there’s nowhere to hide - no private school, no popularity, no trust fund. It’s just you and your most base emotion. Fear is where the truth lies.
Quote 2: But there was something wrong with me. It clawed at my insides, desperate to get out.
Quote 3: If you want this to be over, just make sure she screams.
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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 23

Song: “Katie Dear” Quote: Then he picked up this golden dagger,
And stove it through his troubled heart,
Saying, “Goodbye, Katie, goodbye darling. The time has come for us to part.” There are many versions of this song. Read more here. Listen to the performance of Brennan Leigh & Noel McKay…
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Watch Now: Race Massacre graves researchers need DNA, genealogies to tie burials to victims Utah Cold Case Coalition Intermountain Forensics is seeking DNA help from anyone who may have relatives from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Researchers think DNA is the best chance for the case known for now as “burial 27” to be the first conclusively identified victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In a project update Wednesday with reporters, University of Oklahoma archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck expressed optimism the team’s efforts could possibly have “successfully located the first victim of the massacre” after a young Black man was exhumed with two bullets from a potter’s field corner of Oaklawn Cemetery.
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Halloween 2022: Day 15

Song: “In the Pines” Quote: “My husband was a hard working man, Killed a mile and a half from here. His head was found in a driving wheel And his body hasn’t ever been found.” “My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me. Tell me, where did you sleep last night?” “In the pines, in the pines, Where the sun don’t ever shine. I would shiver the whole night through.” Read the complete lyrics. Listen to Lead Belly’s performance…
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Meet The Last Man!

Meet The Last Man! In March 2024, I will be offering the module “Meet The Last Man” with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University. Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I’m really looking forward to exploring it with students! Here is more information.
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Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman

Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951) by Amy H. Sturgis I’m happy to say that my “Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951)” post, based on my experience of teaching Shirley Jackson in my graduate Dark Academia course in Fall 2022, is now online at Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century.
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Halloween 2022: Halloween Day

Happy Halloween, everyone! Song: “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe Quote: The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. Read the complete poem. Listen to Joan Baez’s performance…
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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 28

Dark Academia novel: All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth (2018) Quote: There was a story on campus about a student who had died many years ago—so long ago that no one remembered anymore what his name was or how he had died exactly, but there were reports every now and again of a sighting of his ghost. Some said he’d hanged himself in the showers of the senior boys’ dormitory over a broken heart; others said he’d overdosed on pills and fallen into an eternal slumber in his dorm bed over a failing exam grade. It was bad luck if you saw him, a harbinger of terrible things to come. Bryce Langston had reported seeing the ghost on his way home from the library one night. The next morning, he got a rejection letter from Harvard. Everyone had thought he would be a shoo-in, and he hadn’t even gotten on the waiting list. The next year, Amanda King supposedly saw the ghost right before she got in a fatal car accident. I always thought about the ghost when I was walking around campus at night by myself. I imagined seeing a white smear in the corner of my vision, but every time I turned my head, there was nothing there.
ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 4

Song: “Murder of the Lawson Family” Quote: It was on last Christmas Evening, A snow was on the ground, His home in North Carolina Where this murderer he was found. His name was Charlie Lawson And he had a loving wife, But we’ll never know what caused him To take his family’s life.
Listen to The Carolina Buddies’ performance…
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

 

31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 25: S.T.A.G.S. Series by M.A. Bennett (2017-2021) Quote from S.T.A.G.S. (2017): I think that’s when I realised he was crazy: he was still being chivalrous, waiting until I was quite ready for him to kill me. 
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I am delighted to report that STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER is coming soon! ? I’m so excited to share this with the universe! This academic anthology includes work from Emily Strand, Una McCormack, Daniel Unruh, Edward Guimont, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, Kristina Šekrst, Javier Francisco, Erin Bell, Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad, Andrew Higgins, John Jackson Miller, and me. The cover art is by Emily Austin. More information, including the complete Table of Contents, is available here from Vernon Press. ALT
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Bertha Mellish and the Missing Student

On November 18, 1897, junior student Bertha Lane Mellish vanished from Mount Holyoke College. Her disappearance remains an unsolved mystery. I’m currently working on a book project that involves the Mellish case. Today it feels especially important to say her name. Note: If anyone would like a (very brief!) peek into my current book project, here is a video of my presentation “Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia.“ I gave this talk earlier this year at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference. ALT ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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30 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 18: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (2017)
Quote 1: But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart — by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.  Quote 2: You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.

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