Happy Halloween, everyone! Here are a variety of links from across the web to get you in the holiday spirit!
Gender
Fuck No Sexist Halloween Costumes
This tumblr blog has a simple concept: side-by-side comparisons of the same costume (shark, sock monkey, Indiana Jones) “for men” and “for women.” Because gender binary!
“From Our Archives: Halloween.” Sociological Images.
A round-up of links, mainly about costumes in terms of race/ethnicity and gender. There’s also a Pinterest page.
A website full of DIY costume ideas beyond “sexy such and such” that includes goddesses, historical figures, queens, and notable women from all time periods, gender presentations, and regions of the world. Now on Kickstarter!
History
“The Halloween Special.” British History Podcast. 22 Oct. 2012.
Jamie discusses the British origins of Halloween and jack-o-lanterns.
Sarah Dowdey and Cristen Conger. “A Brief History of Trick-or-Treating.” Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast by HowStuffWorks.com. 8 Oct. 2012.
The hosts discuss the origins of contemporary trick-or-treating in the US. There are a number of Halloween-themed episodes this year, so subscribe and check them out!
Film/Media
Lindsay Ellis is one of my favorite film critics: her razor-sharp wit, intelligent humor, and cultural/gender analyses of films are welcome and necessary in the world of film criticism. She’s covered a number of Halloween-themed films on her Blip TV show Nostalgia Chick: Teen Witch, Hocus Pocus, Labyrinth, Sleepy Hollow, and my favorite scary movie, Showgirls (in two parts).
Lindsay Baltus. “Horror Show: Feminist Horror Films to See This Ladyween.” Bitch Magazine. 29 Oct. 2012.
Five feminist horror films you may not have heard of–not the standards. I haven’t seen any of these yet!
Scary Stories
Pseudopod is a weekly horror-story podcast by Escape Artists and covers all subgenres of horror. Some of my favorites are “The Music of Eric Zann” by H.P. Lovecraft; “Napier’s Bones” by Stephen Gaskell; “The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt; “Kill Screen” by Chris Lewis Carter; and the Flash on the Borderlands series of flash fiction is always a treat.
Podcastle is Escape Artists’ fantasy podcast, but some of their stories have elements of horror or the supernatural; during October, the team runs some spookier fare. My favorites of the more Halloween variety include “Their Changing Bodies” by Alana Dawn Johnson; “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe; “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe; “The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights” by Daniel Abraham; and the Carnacki the Ghost Finder series by William Hope Hodgson.
Otsuichi. ZOO. (2 vols.) Shueisha. 2002.
I’ve been reading this collection of horror stories in Japanese off an on for several years. The author occasionally uses kanji for words that usually appear in kana, but the stories are fairly straight-forward. I would recommend most for JLPT N1/N2 test-takers. I have the 2006 printing in two volumes, but the original was in one volume. My favorites are “SO-far” (vol. 1), “ZOO” (vol. 1), and “落ちる飛行機の中で” (vol. 2). There was a film made of half the stories (those in vol. 1), but I haven’t seen it yet.
Japan
What Can I Do with a B.A. in Japanese Studies? has featured several Halloween topics on Fun Link Fridays: “Fun Link(s) Friday: Halloween Bento Roundup 2012,” “Halloween Bento,” “Halloween Prank Videos,” and “Here’s to a horrifying drive to work.”
Kay. “Sweet Heavens! Baskin Robins All Set to Get Japan Into the Halloween Spirit.” Rocket News 24. 30 Sept. 2012.
This year’s Halloween treats at 31 in Japan.
Mark Schreiber. “Halloween in Japan: no trick or treat, but scary spots galore.” The Japan Times. 29 Oct. 2012.
Bilingual column on Halloween and spooky places in Japan.
Minoru Matsutani. “Halloween treats retailers’ new trick.” The Japan Times. 30 Oct. 2009.
The origins of the Halloween consumer trend in Japan.
Happy Halloween! ハッピーハロウィン！
The Lobster Dance 
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