I just heard about a French conference: Presence de Lovecraft : l’illustration en question (trans.: The presence of Lovecraft: a question of illustration”), which happened in France on 13th-14th June 2013…

“Lovecraft’s works entertain an essential relationship to the very notion of illustration, for various reasons. … Lovecraft consistently managed to include in his short stories blank spaces [Such as the Necronomicon] that seem to call for continuation or illustration of his texts. [There are also many videogames, comics, films to discuss, and wider topics in adaptation of literary works …]”

Participants and programme papers, with my approximate translations…

Denis Mellier (Universite de Poitiers): “Nouvelles notes a distance 1995-2012: sur la poetique de l’exces chez Lovecraft et de quelques solutions graphiques qui lui furent appliquees” [New notes for the period 1995-2012: the poetics of Lovecraftian excess and some of the graphics solutions applied to it]

Christopher Robinson (HEC Paris): “From Necronomicon to Alien“. [Presumably about the influence of Lovecraft on Giger?]

Pierre Jailloux (Paris 8): “Presence de l’indicible: found footage et poetique Lovecraftienne”. [The presence of the unspeakable: found footage and Lovecraftian poetics]

Philippe Met (University of Pennsylvania, USA): “H.P. Lovecraft revu et corrige par Lucio Fulci”. [H.P. Lovecraft revised and corrected by Lucio Fulci]

Isabelle Perier: “Adaptation et transmedialite: Kadath, la Cite Inconnue”. [Adaptation and transmediality: Kadath the Unknown City]

Jerome Dutel (Universite Jean Monnet): “Dessiner celui qui est d’ailleurs: The Outsider (2004) de Gou Tanabe et L’atranger (1999) de Horacio Lalia”. [Drawing that which is elsewhere: on two French comics adaptations by Lalia]

Eric Lysoe (Universite Blaise Pascal): “”The strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich”: le referent pictural et ses fonctions dans At the Mountains of Madness“. [“The strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich”: the pictorial references and their function in At the Mountains of Madness“]

Julien Schuh (Universite Reims Champagne-Ardenne): “L’empreinte : reproduction, transposition, adaptation chez Lovecraft”. [The footprint: transferring and adapting Lovecraft]

Remi Cayatte (Universite de Lorraine): “H.P. Lovecraft: acteur majeur de la culture populaire moderne”. [H.P. Lovecraft: a major figure in modern popular culture]

Roger Bozetto (Universite de Provence): “De l’imagine a l’inimaginable”. [To imagine the unimaginable]

Karen Vergnol-Remont (Universite Blaise Pascal): “Howard Philips Lovecraft: un auteur dont le génie inspire”. [Howard Philips Lovecraft: an author inspired by genius]

Arnaud Moussart (Universite Jean Monnet): “Night Gaunts de Brett Rutherford: entre illustration et (re)creation”. [The Night Gaunts of Brett Rutherford: between illustration and (re)creation]

Round-table discussion with Nicolas Fructus, Gilles Francescano and Philippe Jozelon.

Now online, the contents-list for this August’s annual Lovecraft Annual #7 (2013). 218 pages, inc. yours truly!

Erik Davis’s essay “Calling Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft’s Magick Realism”, a 2005 update of an earlier essay. Erik is the author of the excellent Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998).

Added to the Open Lovecraft page…

* Charlene Busalli (2011), “H.P. Lovecraft, ou la quête de l’inconnu“. (Masters dissertation for the Universite Jean Monnet. In French. Translation of title is ‘H.P. Lovecraft, or The Quest for the Unknown’. Appears to be a general survey of a dozen or so of Lovecraft’s well-known themes, with a few pages devoted to discussion of each).

[ Hat-tip: Alban aka Robert Olmstead ]

Inventory of the Arkham House Collection: 1930-1953, held at the Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University.

Added to the Open Lovecraft page on this blog…

* Patricia Garcia (2013), The Architectural Void: space as transgression in postmodern short fiction of the fantastic (1974-2010). (PhD thesis, some pages of discussion of Lovecraft as a precursor and influence).

* Erik Fredriksson (2010), Hidden Knowledge and Man’s Place in the Universe: a study of human incompetence and insignificance in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. (B.A. dissertation, in English).

* Ryan P. Kennedy (2012), “Evolution of Effect: the numinous in gothic and post-gothic ghost experience literature”. (B.A. dissertation, discusses Lovecraft relationship to the early gothic and then on pp.37-49 discusses “The Unnamable”, “Hypnos” and “Nyarlathotep”).

Added to the Open Lovecraft page on this blog…

* Derk van Santvoort (2008), “Casting Shadows Out of Time: H.P. Lovecraft, His Influences and His Influence”. (Masters dissertation for Utrecht University).

The University of Hamburg, in Germany, has a set of free video lectures: A Virtual Introduction to Science Fiction in English.

Added to the Open Lovecraft page:

* S.T. Joshi (2012), “Poe, Lovecraft, and the Revolution in Weird Fiction”. (Transcript of a lecture given at the Ninth Annual Commemoration Program of the Poe Society, 7th October 2012).

Used Linkbot to do a double-pass check and repair of all Web links on this blog’s Open Lovecraft page.

Interesting conference location in 2014. the Island Dynamics academic network presents Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural: Experience, Place, Ritual, and Narrative, set for late March 2014 in… “remote and windswept cottages on the island of Unst” in the Shetland Islands, in the bleak far north of Britain. It’s followed by the probably-slightly-more-comfy The Supernatural in Literature and Film conference from 29th—31st March 2014, in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands. Yes, they have broadband — a new £8m undersea fibre-optic cable linked them to the mainland in late 2012.