The fiction of H.P. Lovecraft has seen both a popular and critical
resurgence over the past twenty years or so. This renaissance of
interest in Lovecraft includes both a renewed attention to his own
writing—including serious contemplation of his sometimes latent, often
overt racism—and in turning his fiction into a great variety of medial
texts, including (but probably not limited to) films and TV series,
video games, podcasts, and board games. This seminar, which ties into an
ongoing research project on Lovecraft adaptation, will attempt to
utilize the complex example of Lovecraft—not just the writer of
adaptable texts, but also the adjectival progenitor of a host of
“Lovecraftian” fiction—to discuss the theory and philosophy of
adaptation. We will begin by reading a number of Lovecraft’s texts and
then proceed to view, play, and listen to a variety of adaptations of
Lovecraft and of the “Lovecraftian.” We will seek to develop a theory of
Lovecraftian adaptation in our own practice of engagement with these
texts.
- Trainer/in: Tim Lanzendörfer