Miskatonic University (Location)

Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in the equally fictional Arkham, Massachusetts. It was introduced in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.

Building

TODO

Features

• Orne Library

History

Expeditions

The Miskatonic University has funded several expeditions around the world.

Pabodie Expedition

An expedition in 1930 to the Antarctic funded by the Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation. It consisted of four men from the University—Pabodie, Lake of the biology department, Atwood of the physics department (also a meteorologist), and an unnamed geologist —besides sixteen assistants; seven of which were graduate students from Miskatonic. The expedition ended in tragedy when a party led by Perey Lake all were killed in a massive snow storm after discovering the Miskatonic Mountain Range. The expedition was followed up by the independent Starkweather-Moore Expedition in 1933.

Faculty

General

• Dr. Harvey Wainscott – Dean of Miskatonic University c. 1929 (Scenario: Halloween_Nuit
• Ward Phillips (I), first president of the university (late 1700s)(Derleth)

Medical School

• Dr. Allan Halsey (Herbert West: Reanimator)
  • Dean of the Medical School
  • (died August 14th 1903 of typhoid)
• (Prof?) Francis Morgan (The Dunwich Horror)

Library

• Henry Armitage (The Dunwich Horror)
  • Head Librarian
  • (A.M. Miskatonic, Ph. D. Princeton, Litt. D. Johns Hopkins)
• Dr. Cyrus Llanfer, Chief Librarian after Armitage (Derleth)
• Ward Phillips (II), Chief Librarian before Armitage (early 1800s) (Derleth)

Engineering

• Prof. Frank H. Pabodie (At the Mountains of Madness)
  • Inventor: a special drill, "unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity...to cope quickly with strata of varying hardness"
  • Inventor: "fuel-warming and quick-starting devices" for aircraft
  • Inventor: "a plan for sinking copper electrodes in thick clusters of borings and melting off limited areas of ice with current from a gasoline-driven dynamo"

Biology

• (Prof?) Perey Lake (At the Mountains of Madness)
  • Discovered mysterious mountains in Antarctica by following fossils "westward or northwestward"
  • Disappeared in the ill-fated first Antarctic expedition
• Professor (?) Dexter (The Whisperer in Darkness)
  • Professor of Zoology

Anthropology

• Professor Tyler M. Freeborn (The Shadow out of Time)
  • Anthropology
• Professor Seneca Lapham (Derleth), Anthropology
• Professor Laban Shrewsbury (Derleth), Anthropology and Philosophy

Math/Physics

• (Prof?) Atwood (At the Mountains of Madness)
  • Disappeared in the ill-fated first Antarctic expedition
• Professor (?) Upham (The Dreams in the Witch House)

Geology

• (Prof?) William Dyer (At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time)
  • 1875-?
• Professor Ellery (The Dreams in the Witch House)

History and Social Sciences

• Dr. Harvey Wilcox – Dean of History and Social Sciences c. 1929 (Scenario: Halloween_Nuit)
• Dr. Elliot Mills (Miskatonic University (Supplement))
  • Professor in the Department of History, specializing in American Indian history and tribal lore

English and Other Languages

• Albert Wilmarth
  • Assistant Professor of English (The Whisperer in Darkness)
  • "unpleasantly erudite Folklorist" (At the Mountains of Madness)
  • Chair of Literature Department (Fritz Lieber's "To Arkham and the Stars")
• Professor Warren Rice (The Dunwich Horror)
  • Professor of Classical Languages

School Infirmary

• "Old" Waldron
  • Head Doctor

Security

• Terrence O’Kelly – Miskatonic University Night Watchman c. 1929 (Scenario: Halloween_Nuit)
  • 1929: new to this job and nervous about his checkered past. In his youth he ran with “The Fins”, an Irish gang. He never became a member of the O’Bannion mob because he turned his life around. Afraid someone will find out about his past.

Other

• Doctor Francis Morgan (The Dunwich Horror and Fritz Lieber's "To Arkham and the Stars")
  • Professor of either Medicine and Comparative Anatomy or Archaeology (original source unknown, Fritz Leiber refers to Medicine and Comparative anatomy in "The Terror from the Depths")
  • Researcher of psychedelic drugs including LSD and mescaline (Fritz Lieber's "To Arkham and the Stars")
• (Prof?) Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (The Shadow out of Time)
  • 1870-?
  • professor of political economy
  • from 1908 until 1913 experienced a strange change of personality
• Wingate Peaslee (The Shadow out of Time)
  • Son of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, and also a professor at the university
• Re-Animator film series:
  • Dr. Dan Cain, Hospital
  • Dr. Graves, Hospital
  • Dr. Carl Hill, Medical School

Courses

The University offers a wide range of courses in almost any subject. Some of them included in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft are:

• Advanced General Psychology
• Calculus D

Alumni

• Frank Elwood (The Dreams in the Witch House)
• Walter Gilman (The Dreams in the Witch House)
• Herbert West (Herbert West: Reanimator)
• (?) Danforth (At the Mountains of Madness)
  • Grad student
  • Became a professor of psychology at the university (Fritz Leiber's "To Arkham and the Stars")

Other Students (R.I.P.)

• Grad Students, disappeared in Antarctica (At the Mountains of Madness):
  • (?) Gedney
  • (?) Carroll
  • (?) Ropes
• Graduate student Bradford “Brad” Kenmore – withdrew from the university in November, 1929 due to a severe case of leprosy (Scenario: Halloween_Nuit)

Guest Lecturers and Consulting Experts

• Dr. Fadil Himsi – Noted Egyptian Archaeologist, Cairo Museum

Appearances

• At the Mountains of Madness, H.P.Lovecraft
• The Dreams in the Witch House, Lovecraft
• The Dunwich Horror, Lovecraft
• Herbert West – Reanimator, Lovecraft
• The Whisperer in Darkness, Lovecraft

See Also

The horror movie Re-Animator, directed by Stuart Gordon and based on a Lovecraft story, took place at Miskatonic University. As a tribute to Lovecraft, Bill Pullman's character in 'Brain Dead' attended the university, as did some characters in the film Dagon.

The Millennium comics series H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu introduces The Miskatonic Project (created by Mark Ellis with art by Darryl Banks, Daryl Hutchinson and Don Heck), a group of investigators who follow up on the loose ends of Lovecraft's original stories, such as "The Whisperer In Darkness".

Also, the DC Comics character Zatanna, a female magician, uses the alias "Miss Katonic". John M. Ford's Star Trek novel How Much For Just The Planet? puts "Princess DeeDee the First" into a Miskatonic U. sweatshirt at one point. "Dreams in the Witch House" (a short film for the SHOWTIME network's "Masters of Horror" series), also based on a H.P. Lovecraft story and directed by Stuart Gordon, focuses on a Miskatonic University student and takes place in and around the university.

Trivia

It is speculated that the word "Mis-katonic" is derived from Greek chthonic, since many of Lovecraft's monsters and gods were chthonic, but Lovecraft declared that the word was "a jumble of Algonquin roots."

Depending on the writer, mottos for MU have ranged from "Ex Ignorantia Ad Sapientiam; Ex Luce Ad Tenebras" (Out Of Ignorance Into Wisdom; Out Of Light Into Darkness) to "A Small Sacrifice for Knowledge", and their mascot has been stated as everything from the Badger to the Fighting Cephalopods (as in, "Go ′Pods!").

External links

• A Miskatonic University website
• A mock Miskatonic University site
• Another mock Miskatonic University site
• Other Miskatonic University websites (Google search)

Original Wiki source: Wikipedia