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Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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2024 Wrap-Up: Talks

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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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 12

Song: “Bluestone Mountain” Quote: Sometimes I wonder if God watches.
And sometimes life can turn in cruel ways
‘Cause on a cold autumn day in late October
Little Jacob wandered in Scott Hollow Cave. Now the caves of West Virginia run forever
Like a maze of black ribbon through the ground.
Cora went to search for little Jacob,
But neither Jake nor Cora would be found. Read the complete lyrics. Listen to the performance of Bluestone County Bluegrass…
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eldritchhobbit

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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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eldritchhobbit

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Meet The Last Man!

I’m delighted to say that it’s back! My month-long “Meet The Last Man” module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University is currently up for candidacy for June 2025. Voting is open through May 1. Those who sign up will have a voice in the scheduling of the live discussion sessions. 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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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 30

Dark Academia novel: Don’t Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna (2023) From the cover: We never remember the dead girls. We never forget the killers.  Quote: Sometimes it seems like an answer – any answer – to what happened to Abby that night is what Bree needs to move on. … for one second, she sees the moment in exact detail: Abby crying under the statue of the Black Angel in her Hermione Halloween costume, snowflakes collecting on her coppery hair. Chelsea and Bree watching her, not putting their arms around her, letting her walk away. Her footprints in the snow leading down that blacktop path. The last trace of her they ever saw. ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 10

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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eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 24

Song: “Willie Moore” Quote: She threw herself in Willie Moore’s arms,
As oft time had done before,
But little did he think when they parted that night
Sweet Anna he would see no more. It was about the tenth of May,
The time I remember well,
That very same night her body disappeared
In a way that no one could tell. Read the complete lyrics. Listen to the performance of the Kossoy Sisters…
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2022: Day 25

Song: “Callie Calling” Quote: I hear my Callie callin’, callin’ every night.
She stirs around each evenin’, but never in the light.
Haunts me and she taunts me and fills my heart with fright.
I hear my Callie callin’, callin’ every night. Sometimes she whispers, other times she screams.
It’s hard to tell the difference, if she’s real or in my dreams.
She’s the creakin’ in the ceilin’, the knock upon the door,
The wind outside the window, and the footsteps on the floor. Listen to Milan Miller’s performance…
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 24

Dark Academia novel: The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige (2020) From the cover: These sorority girls are real witches. Quote: That was when she noticed the single tarot card positioned nearly at the head of her bare mattress, as if placed there by a careful hand. It was the Death card her mother had given her. The skeleton leered up at her with a gruesome smile, and for a moment, it almost looked like the eyes glowed red. Vivi shivered, despite knowing that it was a trick of the light. I told you. Westerly isn’t a safe place, not for people like you… ALT
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eldritchhobbit

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<p>ICYMI, my talk “Whitechapel ‘What Ifs’: Evol...

ICYMI, my talk “Whitechapel ‘What Ifs’: Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fiction” is now on Rippercast. Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Podcast - Dr. Amy Sturgis -Whitechapel What Ifs- Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fictio
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Join Me for A Haunting on the Hill

This year I’ve been delighted to join SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. This week I’m wrapping up teaching my first module, which is on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It’s been so much fun! Currently my March module candidate is up for vote for until 2/1. It’s on A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. I hope you’ll join me! More information on my offered modules is here.
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 6: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Quote: Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does.
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eldritchhobbit

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New “Looking Back on Genre History”

My latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment is the first of a two-part review of the anthology AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, and Sarah Dillon, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. It’s now up on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast. ALT ALT StarShipSofa 718 Lincoln Michel | StarShipSofa
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eldritchhobbit

eldritchhobbit

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<p>I was sorry to learn of the death of directo...

I was sorry to learn of the death of director He Ping last month. I’ve treated myself to a rewatch of his memorable wuxia/Western film Warriors of Heaven and Earth in tribute. (It’s pictured here with some of the other movies in my “films by or with Jiang Wen” collection.)
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eldritchhobbit

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Happy Birthday, Shirley Jackson!

On this day in 1916, the great Shirley Jackson was born. Here’s a little piece I wrote earlier this year about teaching Jackson’s remarkable novel Hangsaman. It’s posted at “Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century,” an online resource investigating the past and future landscapes of Shirley Jackson studies. I’m looking forward to teaching The Haunting of Hill House in January! Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951) by Amy H. Sturgis
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