JURN updated

14 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Scholarly works

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My JURN search-engine has just had its annual full check-and-repair. JURN lets you search inside 4,538 free ejournals in the arts & humanities, and the results gives full-text access to all articles. Rather handy for independent scholars who have no access to commercial academic journal collections.

My JURN Directory has also been also repaired and updated. This organised directory contains links to the home-pages of the 3,000 English-language ejournals included in JURN.

Lovecraft’s 1932 library list

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Historical context, REH

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A PDF of The Cross Plainsman (Autumn 2000) contains a transcript of the 1932 list of books owned by Lovecraft, sent to R.E. Howard. Presumably it was a partial list, items of interest to Howard?

“There are then appended the pages listing Lovecraft’s personal library at the time, August 1932. […] I append here the list of books in the 1932 HPL collection:”

Interesting to see that Lovecraft owned a pirated amateur edition of the famous Not at Night omnibus.

Also on the shelves in 1932 was “Theory of Pneumatology – Jung – Shilling”. Not, as you might think, the Jung. But rather Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling, a man of the late 18th century.

“This [The Theory of Pneumatology] is in reply to the question, what ought to be believed or disbelieved concerning presentiments, visions and apparitions, according to nature, reason and scripture. Contents: Introduction; Examination and Refutation of the Principles of Materialism; Remarks Upon the Nature of Man; On Presentiments, Predictions, Enchantments and Prophesying; On Visions and Apparitions; Brief Summary; Notes. Also included is a biographical sketch of the author, Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling.”

New book on del Toro

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Call for academic papers, edited for length and for focus on Lovecraft-friendly topics:

“Guillermo del Toro is one of the most interesting people currently involved in genre in its various expressions. He is an artist who embodies his art that comes as a result of his creative passions and deep reflection. One of the elements that make him so interesting is critical reflection on various elements that contribute to his approach at bringing genre to life. … I am seeking the submission of abstracts for chapters for this proposed volume. Possible topics may include the following in connection with Guillermo del Toro:

*Relationship between del Toro’s self-professed atheism/agnosticism and interests in monstrous transcendence

*Monsters as metaphor

*Gods and monsters as overlapping and co-existing concepts

*Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos

*Concept of the monstrous sacred

Abstracts of up to 350 words should be sent to my attention as the volume’s at johnwmorehead@msn.com. Submissions will be accepted through 30th November 2013. This book is not a scholarly one, but will include thoughtful interactions with del Toro’s work. Once contributors are identified a proposal will be submitted to potential publishers. A major genre publisher has already expressed an interest in this volume. No definite timeframe has been established, but contributors may be identified by the end of the year, and a goal may be to have chapter drafts completed by the end of April for submission to a publisher in May.

Alambique

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Scholarly works

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Alambique…

“is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal devoted to scholarly research and criticism in the fields of science fiction and fantasy originally composed in Spanish or Portuguese. Alambique will accept scholarly articles written in English, however, as long as the main focus of the study concentrates on one of the Spanish or Portuguese cultural regions of the world.”

First issue available now.

De Profundis 2nd ed.

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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I found an interesting literary/Lovecraft RPG. It’s based on writing fictional letters to the other players, as if from a set of Lovecraftian characters in a common scenario. De Profundis (Second Edition)…

“The Diana Jones 2002 Award Nominated game of psychological horror returns in an all new, and expanded, 2nd Edition. […] De Profundis is a correspondence-based story-telling game that can be played from the point of view of participants from a variety of eras. […] Not requiring the usual face-to-face aspect of most traditional RPGs, the game caters for people who find it hard to maintain a regular gaming group due to time commitments, or for those who don’t have any fellow gamers in their neighbourhood. Utilising a mix of letter writing, email and text-based gaming – depending on your chosen era of play – it’s a perfect game for the modern time-strapped gamer.”

prof

I’m guessing it might need one player nominated as “the summariser”. After each round of letter-writing, he would summarise the plot developments so far, and at the same time imaginatively smooth out any glaring plot inconsistencies that one or more of the players might have introduced.

At perhaps 800 to 1,000 words per letter it would also leave a group text, of a kind, which the group could later hire a novelist to work up into a novelisation. Or which they could synopsise and then offer as a free Creative Commons licensed plot for graphic novel artists, audio staging, etc.