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.

Added to the Open Lovecraft page:

* Fabian Luduena (2013), “Astrophobos o la in-harmonia mundi: glosas a la obra poetica de H.P. Lovecraft”, Revista Landa, Vol.1, No.2, 2013. (In Spanish. Rough translation: “Astrophobos” and the inharmonious world: thoughts on the poetry of H.P. Lovecraft. By a philosopher at the Instituto Gino Germani, University of Buenos Aires).

Added to the Open Lovecraft page…

* Tristan Garcia (2013), “Crossing Ways of Thinking: on Graham Harman’s system and my own”, Parrhesia : a journal of critical philosophy, No.16, 2013, pp.14-25. (Tristan Garcia responds to Harman’s recent book Weird Realism: Lovecraft And Philosophy, recognising its multiple levels of usefulness for philosophy. Harman responds in his follow-on article “Tristan Garcia and the Thing-in-Itself”).

Also found a long abstract for a Masters dissertation, An examination of contributive narrative: A look at the Lovecraft Circle and the expansion of the Cthulhu Mythos…

“The Lovecraft Circle [i.e. the early use of his mythos in fiction by others] stands as a hybrid example of a controlled Fanfic [fan fiction] that expands a fictional world using techniques from contributive narrative, publication, and acknowledgment. With the support of literary theories and research from accredited Lovecraft scholars, there is concrete evidence that the Lovecraft Circle can be classified as a true literary circle that stands apart from postmodern writing circles.”

And an abstract for the paywalled “Music Against Horror: H.P. Lovecraft and Schopenhauer’s Aesthetics”…

“…it is possible to position “The Music of Erich Zann” as a distillation of Lovecraft’s reading of Schopenhauer into a nuanced and effective dramatic narrative. A reading of Lovecraft that incorporates Schopenhauerian aesthetics, in this instance specifically related to music, can illuminate Lovecraft’s fiction and resonate with both Lovecraft’s and Schopenhauer’s world views.”

Now printing, the first 200-page issue of Sargasso: journal of William Hope Hodgson Studies, which will premiere at NecronomiCon 2013. I can’t say Hodgson is my cup-of-tea, though I read him in the 80s, but it’s great to see another scholarly journal in the field — and one not afraid to slap on a deliciously retro cover which evokes the alt-zines of yore.

$25 to the UK including shipping.