WEIRD INVESTIGATIONS AND NATIVIST SEMIOTICS IN H. P. LOVECRAFT AND DASHIELL HAMMETT.

The article discusses the works of the 19th century authors Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Dashiell Hammett, particularly Hammett's novel "The Dain Curse," and the weird tale pulp genre in magazine "Weird Tales," by Lovecraft. Topics discussed include Hammett's work critiquing weird tale obsession with semiotics of racial and ethnic difference and eugenic epistemology, characterizing positivist orientation of nativist writers, and criminal anthropology of the late criminologist Cesare Lombroso.