Critical Readings

The panel closes out OctPOEber 2026 with another C. Auguste Dupin story, examining its gothic roots, considering the views of both Lacan and Derrida, and questioning how it fits alongside Rue Morgue within the then-novel idea of 'detective fiction'.
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The panel discusses Poe's first C. Auguste Dupin story, and examines it as the first detective novel, with special attention to its literary context and the influence that it has had on later authors, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to J.K. Rowling.
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The panel discusses Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Ashes, with special attention given to the floridity of its descriptions and the duplication of language and imagery, and to the nature of the malady that afflicts the twin siblings of Usher.
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The panel reads The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, with attention to its structure of vengeance, its gothic genre features, the presence of literal echoes and narrative recurrence, and particularly the reliability—and sanity—of the narrator.
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The panel discusses the conclusion of Beowulf—including Beowulf's final battle and his victorious death—with particular attention given to the didactic purpose of the poem, its framing of leadership and loyalty, and its function in historical context.
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