The following is a reprint of my 2021 article from Mystery & Suspense titled “Supernatural Detectives: Ten Supernatural Thrillers that are Also Great Detective Stories.” For more on crime fiction, see my post “Hard-Boiled Detectives: Unveiling Detective Fiction’s Thrilling Dark Influence.” Any good mystery draws the reader into a sinister puzzle (usually involving murder) while…
Detectives in the Shadows: A Hard-Boiled History by Susanna Lee, as published in The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, in March 2023. Susanna Lee’s Detectives in the Shadows is an incisive, entertaining jaunt through the hard-boiled genre from its pulp-fiction origins to the present. Lee, Professor and Chair of the Department of French…
The following is adapted from the introduction to my book about Salomania, Sex, Art, And Salome: Historical Photographs of a Princess, Dancer, Stripper, and Feminist Inspiration. Check out the book for more detail, including over 130 historical photographs. I spent many years working with historical documents at the Library of Congress and other cultural heritage…
What we now call autism has long existed among humans. But medicine only began noticing the particular set of physical and mental traits associated with autism within the last 100 years. This issue has special relevance to me. I have an adult child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (the diagnosis has shifted over the years…