The Turn of the Screw Archive

The Banality of Evil in The Turn of the Screw

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Henry James’s 1898 novella exists as a sort of literary question not unlike that posed by Hannah Arendt. Are the ghosts in this ghost story actually present, or are they just extensions of its governess’s disordered mind? Or—to put it another way—if evil is present in the narrative, where

Creepy Pasta and Michael Helm’s AFTER JAMES

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Part ghost story and part detective novel, After James by Michael Helm is a novel of ideas descended from creepy pasta, or urban legends from the Internet.

Literary Teachers and Their Lessons

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I have a new teaching job this fall, and so I’ve been thinking even more than usual about classrooms, and teachers, and the hold they have on our imaginations. It’s strange to realize, right before I walk into a classroom to teach, how clearly I can remember most of