Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel
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Weird Studies Podcast

Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel host a series of conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call "reality."

  1. 21 AUG

    Mid-Break Bonus: The Quiet Earth

    Every off-week, listeners who have chosen to support Weird Studies by joining our Patreon at the Listener's Tier get to enjoy a bonus episode. These episodes are different from the flagship show. Less formal and entirely improvised, they offer Phil and JF a different way of exploring the weird in art, philosophy and culture. To tide our listenership over until the next new episode drops on September 25th, 2024, here is a recent example of a Weird Studies audio extra, recorded as your hosts were finishing up their first Weirdosphere course, "The Beauty and the Horror." The conversation ended up centering on cultural works we experienced in childhood, and that are all the more magical for being only vaguely remembered. To enroll in JF's upcoming Weirdosphere course, "Whirl Without End: Fairy Tales and the Weird," please visit www.weirdosphere.org.

    1h 2m

  2. 7 AUG

    Don't Look Now: Live at Lily Dale

    Daphne du Maurier was a prolific English writer of novels, plays, and short stories resonant with what she termed "a sense of unreality." In this episode, JF and Phil discuss her great short story "Don't Look Now," which Nicholas Roeg famously adapted to the screen in 1973 in a film starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Recorded live at Shannon Taggart's Lily Dale Symposium on July 25th, 2024, the discussion takes a number of turns, exploring the ghost as an "image of itself," the phenomenon of "deathishness," the experience of derealization, the human capacity to break time, and grief as a rift in time. Visit the Weirdosphere and sign up for JF's upcoming course of lectures and discussions, "Whirl Without End: Fairy Tales and the Weird," starting on September 5th, 2024. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Daphne du Maurier, "Don't Look Now" Nicholas Roeg (dir.), Don't Look Now Weird Studies, Episode 66 on “Diviner’s Time” Chuck Klosterman, "Tomorrow Rarely Knows” Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Peter Medak (dir.), The Changeling Philip K. Dick, “Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes”

    1h 58m

  3. 24 JUL

    Magick and Enlightenment, with Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford

    Phil and JF are joined by Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford – practicing magicians, podcasters, and co-authors of the newly released Baptist's Head Compendium: Magick as a Path to Enlightenment, a collection of essays and reports from their famous occult blog, The Baptist's Head. Duncan and Alan are accomplished practitioners with deep insights into the nature of magic(k). The conversation touches on a number of subjects, including the parallels between magic, mysticism, and religion; form and formlessness; the nature of truth; the primacy of devotion; and the quest to converse with one's Holy Guardian Angel. To purchase The Baptist's Head Compendium at a 20% discount, go to http://www.spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk and enter the code given in the introduction to this episode. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Occult Experiments in the Home, Duncan Baford's blog and podcasts. Barbarous Words, Alan Chapman's Substack. WORP FM, a ten-part podcast series with Alan and Duncan. The Abremelin working Illuminates of Thanatos (IOT) Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law Buddhist Geeks, “The Great Work of Western Magic with Alan Chapman” Aleister Crowly, John St. John Special Guests: Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford.

    1h 30m

  4. 10 JUL

    By Heart: On Memory, Poetry, and Form

    In this computerized age, we tend to see memory as a purely cerebral faculty. To memorize is to store information away in the brain in such a way as to make it retrievable at a later time. But the old expression "knowing by heart" calls us to a stranger, more embodied and mysterious take on memory. In this episode, Phil and JF endeavour to recite two poems they've learned by heart, as a preamble to a discussion on poetry, form, and the magic of memory. Details on Shannon Taggart's Symposium @ Lily Dale (July 25-28). Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Musical Instrument” Dave Hickey, “Formalism” from Pirates and Farmers Weird Studies, Episode 109-110 on “The Glass Bead Game” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria Weird Studies, Episode 42 with Kerry O Brien Francis Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition

    1h 18m

  5. 26 JUN

    Head Over Heels: On the Hanged Man of the Tarot

    The Hanged Man is arguably the most enigmatic card in the traditional tarot deck. Divested of any archetypal apparel – he is neither emperor nor fool, but just a man, who happens to be hanging – he gazes back at us with the look of one who harbors a secret. But what sort of secret? In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the card that no less august a personage than A.E. Waite, co-creator of the classic Rider-Waite deck, claimed was beyond all understanding. The musical interludes in this episode are from Pierre-Yves Martel's recent album, "Bach." Visit his website for more. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REREFENCES Welkin/Gnostic Tarot Sally Nichols, Tarot and the Archetypal Journey Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom Yoav Ben-Dov Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Richard Wagner, ”Sigmund” from Die Walkure Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Star Wars John Frankenheimer (dir.), The Manchurian Candidate Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot MC Richards, “Preface” to Centering Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace Alan Chapman, Magia

    1h 20m

  6. 14 JUN

    The Beauty and the Horror

    This week on Weird Studies, Phil and JF explore the intersections of the beautiful and the terrible in art and literature. There is a conventional beauty that calms and placates, and there is a radical beauty which, taking horror’s pale-gloved hand, gives up all pretense to permanence and fixity and joins the danse macabre of our endless becoming. This episode is a preamble to a five-week course of lectures and discussions starting June 20th on Weirdosphere, JF and Phil’s new online learning platform. For more information and to enroll in The Beauty and the Horror, visit www.weirdosphere.org. REFERENCES JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, the audiobook, with a new introduction written and read by Donna Tartt. Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two William Blake, “The Tyger” Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark Walter Pater, The Renaissance David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return Anna Aikin, “On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror Donna Tartt, The Secret History Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness Charles Baudelaire, “Le Voyage” Franz Schubert, “Death and the Maiden” Quartet Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in C major, D. 840 J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit

    1h 9m

  7. 29 MAY

    Art is Another Word for Truth: On Orson Welles's 'F for Fake'

    Orson Welles made F for Fake in the early seventies, while still bobbing in the wake of a Pauline Kael essay accusing him of being cinema's greatest fraud. Ostensibly a documentary on the famous art forger Elmyr de Hory and his biographer Clifford Irving (a talented faker in his own right), the film blurs the line between fact and fiction in an effort to explore art's weird entanglement with illusion, magic, and ultimately, the search for truth. This is a film unlike any other, and it is arguably Welles's most important contribution to the evolution and theory of film aesthetics. Join the Weirdosphere online learning community by enrolling in Phil and J.F.'s inaugural course, [THE BEAUTY AND THE HORROR](www.weirdosphere.org), starting June 20th. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! RERERENCES Orson Welles, F for Fake Gilles Deleuze Cinema 2 Elmyr de Hory, art forger Clifford Irving, American writer Howard Hughes, American aerospace engineer David Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Film David Thomson, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles Pauline Kael, Raising Kane “War of the Worlds” radio drama The Farm Podcast, “Horror Hosts, Films & Other Strange Realities w/ David Metcalfe, Conspirinormal & Recluse” Orson Welles - Interview with Michael Parkinson (BBC 1974) Geoffrey Cornelius, Cornelius Victoria Nelson, Secret Life of Puppets Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking Sokal affair, hoax Werner Herzog, “Minnesota Declaration”

    1h 26m

  8. 15 MAY

    On Free Expression

    The ongoing crackdown on protests at many American universities prompts a discussion on the politics, ethics, and metaphysics of free expression. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature George Orwell, Inside the Whale New York Times, “At Indiana University, Protests Only Add to a Full Year of Conflicts John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Indiana Daily Student, “Provost Addresses Controversy” Official government page for the Proposed Bill to address Online Harms in Canada. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy Daryl Davis, American musician and activist DavidFoster Wallace, Just Asking

    1h 37m
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About

Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel host a series of conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call "reality."

Information

  • Creator
    Phil Ford and J. F. Martel
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2024
  • Episodes
    187
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Phil Ford and J.F. Martel
  • Show Website
    Weird Studies

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