Master Thesis on Ligotti's work

[Tsalal XIII]

This year I am finishing my philosophy studies in Poznan, Poland, and so it is time to do my Master Thesis. Long time ago I have decided to write about Ligotti's fiction. My plan was to present philosophical ideas standing behind his work (ie. the illusion of self hood or free will), in the context of his stories. I have been collecting the material for this for quite some time now, but not much of it is strictly connected to Ligotti (so that you can actually find the name “Thomas Ligotti” in it) – all I have are the texts in “Thomas Ligotti Reader” and “Collapse IV”.
Now, I know that there have been a contest on subjects related to TL here, to which some of you made a contribution, and perhaps some of you were doing a PhD (or any other text) on Ligotti as well... And so, I have this really great favor to ask – if anyone of you on this forum have any texts (other than the earlier mentioned) with a theoretical analysis of Ligotti's work, I would really, really appreciate if you could contact me - I would love to read them. They don't have to be academic or professional – I only wanted to see what others make of TL's work, find some inspiration, get a new perspective...

Thank you in advance!

[Nemonymous]

In my own amateur fashion, very recently I wrote an on-line spontaneous critique of the collection 'Teatro Grottesco' HERE.

Good luck!

des

[Ascrobius]

One item that you might want to acquire is Studies in Modern Horror #4, put out by Seele Brennt Publications a couple of years ago. It contains The Nemesis of Mimesis: Thomas Ligotti, Worlds Elsewhere, and the Darkness Ten Times Black, by Stephen Tompkins. While oddly, there was never a great deal of attention paid to it, it is an interesting piece devoted to the uniqueness of Tom's writing and his place in the pantheon of purveyors of weird fiction.
You should still be able to get a copy, and it shouldn't be too expensive. Also, the first and most obvious place to start your philosophical exploration of Thomas Ligotti would be with The Conspiracy Against The Human Race. Any questions anyone might have about Tom's worldview and philosophical perspectives are addressed in their entirety in that particular piece of work.
Best,
Tim

(After I posted the original message above, I thought of Joshi's book that includes a rather lengthy, well-constructed section on Tom's fiction. Joshi is a polarizing figure in the world of literary criticism, and not everyone agrees with his positions or his approach to criticism in general, but he has given Tom's impact on weird fiction the credit it deserves and has written some interesting and thoughtful analysis of his writings.

[Steve Dekorte]

If you're interested in the psychology of this type of fiction, I'd recommend reading about depersonalization disorder.

Depersonalization disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Depersonalization_disorder

[MadsPLP]

Quote Originally Posted by Ascrobius

One item that you might want to acquire is Studies in Modern Horror #4, put out by Seele Brennt Publications a couple of years ago. It contains The Nemesis of Mimesis: Thomas Ligotti, Worlds Elsewhere, and the Darkness Ten Times Black, by Stephen Tompkins. While oddly, there was never a great deal of attention paid to it, it is an interesting piece devoted to the uniqueness of Tom's writing and his place in the pantheon of purveyors of weird fiction. You should still be able to get a copy, and it shouldn't be too expensive. Best, Tim

That essay is highly recommended!
There was a piece on Crampton in vol. 2 of the same journal. "Notes on Time Displacement in Crampton" it was called. There were some things of interest in that as well.

[MadsPLP]

A list of texts in printed format about Thomas Ligotti and his fiction. Texts available online not included. Texts included in The Thomas Ligotti Reader not included.

This should be a comprehensive list of essays about Ligotti not available elsewhere. Have I missed any, or is that all?

Anderson, Douglas A.: ”Foreword”, in: Ligotti, Thomas : The Shadow at the Bottom of the World. Cold Spring Press, 2005


Brite, Poppy Z.: “Foreword”, in.: Ligotti, Thomas: The Nightmare Factory. Carroll & Graf, 1996.

Cardin, Matt: "The Master’s Eyes Shining with Secrets: H. P. Lovecraft’s Influence on Thomas Ligotti", in.: Joshi, S.T. (ed.): Lovecraft Annual no. 1. Hippocampus Press, 2007.

Curtis, Nick & Christakos, N.G. (annotations): ”Notes on Time Displacement and Memory Loss in Crampton” in: Christakos, N.G (ed.): Studies in Modern Horror no. 2. Seele Brennt Publications, 2004.

Langan, John: "Thomas Ligotti’s Metafictional Mapping: The Allegory of 'The Last Feast of Harlequin'" in.: Joshi, S.T. (ed.): Lovecraft Annual no. 1. Hippocampus Press, 2007.


MacCulloch, Simon: “"The Lost Art of Twilight": Two Aspects of the Vampire “ in. Ford, Carl T. (ed. (?)): Dagon no. 22/23. Dagon Press, 1988.


Samuels, Mark: ”Everything Ends in a Greater Blackness”, in: Valentine, Mark (ed.): Wormwood no. 1. Tartarus Press, 2003.


Tompkins, Steven: ”The Nemesis of Mimesis: Thomas Ligotti, Worlds Elsewhere, and the Blackness Ten Times Black”, s. 1-28 in Christakos, N.G. (ed.): Studies in Modern Horror, vol. 4.Seele Brennt Publications, 2006.


Trafford, James: “The Shadow of a Puppet Dance” in.: Mackay, Robin (ed.): Collapse, vol. 4. Urbanomic, 2008.

[yellowish haze]

First of all, let me wish Tsalal XIII good luck. MA thesis on Ligotti is quite a challenge but it must also be an incredible opportunity to share some new thoughts on the author and his works.

In Lovecraft Annual No. 1 along with Matt Cardin's brilliant essay The Master's eyes Shining with Secrets (available also at TLO) there is a piece by John Langan entitled Thomas Ligotti’s Metafictional Mapping: The Allegory of "The Last Feast of Harlequin" (pages 126-144).

Recommended!

From on-line information you might want to read this informative blog entry on Cotard's Syndrome, where Ligotti is mentioned.

best,
Slawek

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[MadsPLP]

Thank you very much, Slawek.

I took the liberty of including those two in the list. I was aware of Cardin's brilliant essay earlier, but I didn't know it had been published (there is some little justice in the world, after all).

I didn't know about the existence of Langan's essay - after the first, I'll order the Lovecraft Annual no. 1. There is loads of metafiction in Ligotti's writing, and I would like to see that explored a lot more.

Thanks for that blog link. That "Weird Symposium" seems to be popping up from time to time - does anyone know whether manuscripts of the speakers have been made available somewhere? I would love to read them.

Another link about this event and the talks about Ligotti:

helen_keeble: Notes on The Weird, Part III: Ligotti and The Weird (where we learn in the comments that Ligotti apparently is a misogynist, though no sources are cited - just one of the blessings of the internet and anonymity).

The rest of the links around the internet seems to be same text as in the link posted by Yellowish Haze.

Quote Originally Posted by yellowish haze

In Lovecraft Annual No. 1 along with Matt Cardin's brilliant essay The Master's eyes Shining with Secrets (available also at TLO) there is a piece by John Langan entitled Thomas Ligotti’s Metafictional Mapping: The Allegory of "The Last Feast of Harlequin" (pages 126-144). Recommended! From on-line information you might want to read this informative blog entry on Cotard's Syndrome, where Ligotti is mentioned. best, Slawek

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[matt cardin]

Slawek, you mentioned John Langan's "Thomas Ligotti's Metafictional Mapping" above. Just for the amusement value, I thought I'd interject that this fine essay waited a looooong time to see the light of day.

If memory serves, it was supposed to have been included in THE THOMAS LIGOTTI READER, but was accidentally omitted due a publisher or editor error. There was actually a print run of the READER that featured John's essay in the table of contents but no essay in the text of the book itself. A second print run was done with the essay removed from the TOC (I have copies of both versions, and could refer to them to verify the correctness of my memory here if it weren't for the fact that I'm presently in Texas while all of my books are still boxed up in Missouri; I'm in the eighth month now of that inconvenient and frustrating situation).

Anyway, I think Darrell Schweitzer, who edited the READER, was going to make up for the error by publishing the essay in another book or magazine he was editing. But then it showed up instead in the first issue of LOVECRAFT ANNUAL, edited by S. T.

If you compare the publication date of the READER with that issue of LOVECRAFT ANNUAL, you'll see that John endured a very long wait indeed for his essay to be published. I figure it's been long enough since the appearance of the READER for this story to be okay to tell. And now I'm half expecting it to turn out that my memory is tricking me and it was another essay entirely that was accidentally left out of the READER.

Anyway, that's all apropos to nothing. I do hope your thesis work is going great, Tsalal XIII. You'll let us know, won't you?