Greetings Everyone!
My new book, Horror as Racism in H. P. Lovecraft:
White Fragility in the Weird Tales, has recently been released by
Bloomsbury, the foremost academic publisher in the United States and in the
United Kingdom!
I hope that all of you will pick up a copy; you can
order it online from the publishers and, of course, from Amazon and other
online booksellers around the world. The
book is also available in bookstores here in the states and overseas.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/horror-as-racism-in-h-p-lovecraft-9798765107706/
Lovecraft makes extensive use of racist images in both
his early and later works. These images
are drawn from Lovecraft’s observations of members of the non-white race that
he most despised and abhorred, African
Americans, especially as he observed
them in the slums of his hometown Providence, Rhode Island and at close
quarters during his brief residence in the Red Hook district of New York.
Lovecraft focuses on the simian and ape-like
characteristics that he insisted on seeing in the faces and forms of the locals and then simply projects these
onto his monsters. He does this in a
very conscious and deliberate manner in order to enhance the horror and the
repugnance that these creatures inspire in the minds of his readers (or at
least, so Lovecraft presumed).
Check out my book for analysis of how Lovecraft uses
these images in some of his most popular tales: "Arthur Jermyn," "Herbert West—Reanimator," and "The Rats in the Walls"!
JLS
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