This is a good article about how pseudoarchaeological & pseudohistorical content can soften & spread extremist viewpoints. Extremists know how to weaponize & exploit this point:
"Even if a viewer doesn’t understand the underlying ideology, the memes can lead to more, and more overt, neo-Nazi dreck."
TOP is thrilled to announce 2026’s Hitpoints & History, a virtual conference all about archaeogaming!
Join us Jan 31st to hear from scholars & industry insiders about the connection between developer intent, player agency & historical authenticity.
Tickets and info can be found at hitpointscon.com
Few things have been as influential on the emergence of the racist “just asking questions” pseudoscience that proliferated in the wake of this Nazi-helmed (see thread) publication.
"Calling the discovery the 'clearest proof yet' of how the U.S. government was originally designed to function, archaeologists published new evidence Thursday that suggests the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., may have once been used for legislating."
🏺
Here’s the publisher’s announcement.
🖤 I’m so excited about this I remembered to log into this account. 🤣
This is a terrific online conference
Maybe it does! I need to find someone to ask, I guess lol
I remain obsessed with some of the titles by the prolific author Mrs. Meekes bsky.app/profile/romg...
The early Gothic has so much to show us about the social conditions which inspired tremendous numbers of women to read & write about moldering ruins, cursed heirlooms, predatory men manipulating & stealing inheritances & property rights & autonomy. This talk was inspiring.
This month on Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm chatting to @odavies9.bsky.social
& @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social about their new book Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present. There's even a mention of ice cream van folklore!
youtu.be/xuX87Hcp53U?...
Marvelous new @helleborezine.bsky.social! Looking forward to digging in to this article to find out what’s going on here & if there’s any chance I’m ever going to get my lipstick just right ever again
5 book covers: Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8 (Michael Kelly, ed.) - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Shirley Jackson; and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Kay Chronister, Krisit DeMeester; Brian Evenson, M. Rickert, and more. Aickman's Heirs (Simon Strantzas, ed.) - Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Finalist for the World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 5 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Nadia Bulkin, Brian Evenson, John Langan, Lynda E. Rucker, and more. The Ghost Sequences, by A.C. Wise - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Locus; Bram Stoker; and British Fantasy Awards. To Drown in Dark Water, by Steve Toase - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from Booklist, and Rue Morgue. I Would Haunt You if I Could, by Seán Padraic Birnie - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from The Toronto Star, and Library Journal.
It's October! Hurrah!
I've specially curated 5 of our spookier titles, and discounted the eBooks to just $2. Grab a couple, or all 5 for $10. It's your choice.
@seanbirnie.bsky.social @acwise.bsky.social @stevetoase.bsky.social
undertowpublications.com/ebooks
My periodic call for pitches to the 19th-Century Networks section of ✨Literature Compass✨:
Do you have a state-of-the-field essay to propose on #Romantic or #Victorian topics? a little-known or understudied author to spotlight?
Please get in touch!
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1741...
Breaking News (over a picture of Indiana Jones): Archaeologist blunders his way through yet another discovery without any actual archaeology. Dozens dead. "He really is quite bad at this" says every other archaeologist.
In “Modern Espionage” the ineffectual Dean’s ineffectual efforts to stop a high stakes underground paintball game results in this delightful elevator fight homage, complete with some of the same stuntmen.
I probably should have just included this in the original post. Captain America: the First Avenger includes the obligatory “Nazis hunting for occult artifacts” trope. The Winter Soldier has something cooler: this glass elevator fight scene.
D&D actually received an early 1980s sales bump thanks to the Satanic Panic. The free advertising from Christian organizations allowed teenagers to feel like total, edgy rebels for buying D&D.
Also just realized I’m in the wrong account. Tho tbh I’m sort of letting what gets posted in which sort itself out & pretending that somehow is a process that comes from somewhere other than me 🤣
I think you were sending me your bonkers dreams. I woke up sitting bolt upright in bed but I have no idea why 😂😂😂
Who’s going to sort out the issues with all the edited collections of non-fiction essays? Sigh.
How have I Britta’d this so badly? Back to Remedial Hashtags for me.
#6SeasonsAndAMovie
In which I expand on my obsession with the idea that Greendale Community College sits on top of a secret military installation, which is not strange at all no matter what @fishinnards.bsky.social says.
'This archaeology is often a dramatic, action-packed endeavor in which the fate of the world rests in the hands of a plucky group of scholars who can’t remember where they parked their car but can translate a dead language and navigate a series of complex traps and devious puzzles.' 🤣
Yes, they’re gorgeous! And ridiculously clever.
Haven’t give this a listen yet but I’m a big @baladria.bsky.social fan & you better believe I snapped up a deck of her ancient Egyptian-inspired OFMD tarot cards!
Love these photos 🖤
Oooooh yes.
I did a thing
