dramyhsturgis:
Registration for RRIII: The Expanding Universe is now officially OPEN! Join now to attend this three day digital conference May 4-6, 2023 for social events (cosplay reception), panels, brilliant keynotes, and all things Star Wars!
Realizing Resistance Episode III Tickets | Digital Cultural Studies Cooperative
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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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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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October 22: Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand (1994)
Quote 1:
They never found her. Nothing at all: no clothes, no jewelry, no bones or teeth or locks of auburn hair.
Quote 2:
By the door the two figures remained still. I slitted my eyes, afraid that they would see that I was awake, be moved by the reflection of starlight in my pupils to reach for me with those terrible arms. Still they said nothing, only stood there unmoving, watching, waiting.
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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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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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A new take on familiar entertainment | Lenoir-Rhyne University
My Star Wars class gets a shout out in this article. I’m offering it again in the Spring 2023 semester.
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October 13: Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas (2020)
Quote:
You are here. You are in. And doesn’t it feel good? You are in the house and the house is in the woods. You are in the house and the house is in you.
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Dark Academia novel: Missing Clarissa by Ripley Jones (2023)
Quote:
Everyone from Oreville knows the story of Clarissa. Her living ghost haunts the long rain-dark winters alongside the looming specters of Washington’s grim army of infamous serial killers and litany of missing girls…. Clarissa Campbell, who vanished so completely that no one has found a trace of her – not the full investigative force of the Oreville police department, not legions of armchair sleuths and online obsessives, not television news crews or magazine reporters or Clarissa’s friends and family.
ALT
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Dark Academia novel: Fraternity by Andy Mientus (2022)
From the cover:
Be careful what you pledge.
Quote:
How to make a Perfect Storm:
1. Allow terrible, unholy powers to find their way into the hands of children. See that those children only half-translate their conjurations, missing key protective details.
2. Have them perform those conjurations at the very height of autumn, the dying of the year, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Make sure they are coming to the work not soberly but at an emotional breaking point, dripping blood, hungry for violence. Aim their violence at another child.
3. Pray for those children.
Terrible consequences await them.
ALT
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Song: “Old Tom’s Restless Bones”
Quote:
Old Tom on the front porch smoked his cigarette,
And when he was done, another one he lit.
“Hey, now,” Old Tom said,
“You’re the reason that I’m dead.”
Listen to the performance of David Norris…
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Song: “Young Charlotte”
Quote:
They reached the door, and Charles sprang out and held his hand to her. “Why sit you like a monument, have you no power to stir?” He called her once, he called her twice; she answered not a word. He asked her for her hand again, and yet she never stirred.
There are many variations of this song. Read more here.
Listen to the performance of Grandpa Jones…
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Some of the university and conference talks I gave this year are now online.
Why You Should Read The Last Man by Mary Shelley
Why You Should Read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“A Fortnight in the Wilderness” with Alexis de Tocqueville
“Missing Students & Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia" (presented at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference).
View this presentation here.
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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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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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Song: “Banks of the Ohio”
Quote:
I held a knife against his breast
As into my arms he pressed.
He cried, “My love, don’t murder me!
I’m not prepared for eternity.”
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to the performance of Gangstagrass Feat. Alexa Dirks:
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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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