Jan B. W. Pedersen

H. P. Lovecraft Midnight Studies offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonder- evoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.

In earlier writings, I have sought to establish a link between Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Romanticism, and this paper adds to that body of work. The essay begins with a preliminary sketch of the use of gardens in Romantic thought and the highlighting of six themes: contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign, and the beautiful, that all underpins Romanticism. This is followed by an elucidation of Lovecraft’s fascination with gardens, his dealings in Romantic themes, and what role they play in his short 1917 poem “A Garden”. The essay concludes that given Lovecraft’s love of gardens and that his poem “A Garden” is imbued with Romantic themes and involves ‘wondrous contemplation’ and ‘poetic knowledge’, the case for his Romanticism has been strengthened.

I joined Trevelyan College (Trevs), Durham University in 2011 as a mature student under former professor and principle of the college Martyn Evans. It was to be the beginning of a transformative journey culminating in my doctoral thesis: Balanced Wonder: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Role of Wonder in Human Flourishing. In 2020 Trevs kindly asked me to contribute to the Alumni Magazine Hippocampus and in particular to the ‘Where Are They Now’ section. “You Haven’t Done Anything” is my contribution and it highlights in a humorous fashion some of the things I have achieved since I left Trevs. Sections: Standing still is rarely a good strategy in life If One Lives Wisely Sometimes Less is More and Infinately More Valuable

Drawing on both anthropology and philosophy, this paper argues that the profiled form of the human hand is a universally recognizable image; one whose significance transcends temporally and geographically defined cultural divisions, and represents the earliest known artistic symbol of the human form. The unique co-occurrence of five properties in the image of the human hand and the way it is recognized support this argument, including that it is: (1) unmistakably a hand, (2) unmistakably human, (3) a universal point of interface, (4) a universal referent of scale, and (5) an easy way of making a complex shape. This underappreciated aspect of hand art makes these images among the most important forms of early artistic expression encountered in the prehistoric record.

Lovecraft’s teetotalism is well known among Lovecraftians, but the lengths to which he went to incorporate his views and how he sought to influence the people around him via his various writing remain relatively unexplored. This essay focuses on Lovecraft’s teetotalism and opens with a brief sketch of the historical background from which his dry outlook emerged. It continues by providing evidence for Love- craft’s advocacy of abstinence and Prohibition from a variety of sources, including biographical material, philosophical essays, letters, poetry, and fiction, with a view to showing how he communicated his dry philosophy and how it softened as he advanced into middle age. The essay ends by arguing that although there can be no doubt that Lovecraft was a teetotaler par excellence, his later softened position is more balanced and rooted partly in the realization of his own idiosyncrasy and anachronism.

I dette bogkapitel skrevet sammen med Ingeborg Ilkjær fremlægges tre etiske positioner herunder dydsetik, pligtetik og konsekvensetik. Disse teorier er sammen med eksempler på etiske principper og værdier det grundlag, som sygeplejersker kan benytte sig af i arbejdet med patientinvolvering og etiske dilemma, hvor der skal foretages et valg, der har betydning for patienter, pårørrende og de klinisk involverede. For at kunne træffe valg af denne art er det vigtigt at kunne gøre det på et oplyst grundlag samt at kunne påtage sig et klinisk lederskab. Derfor er det nødvendigt at benytte sig af en etisk refleksionsmodel. Dette arbejde kan være med til at skabe klarhed over en given situation, der rummer vanskelige etiske dilemmaer. Bogkapitlet findes i bogen Sygepleje & Patientinvolvering Bind 3 redigeret af Steen Hundborg og udgivet på FADL’s Forlag I 2019.