Episode 106: The Wanderer: On Weird Studies

Episode 106: The Wanderer: On Weird Studies

Author: SpectreVision Radio September 1, 2021 Duration: 1:27:06
In this episode, Weird Studies turns meta, reflecting on the peculiar medium that is podcasting, and how it has shaped the Weird Studies project itself. JF and Phil provide a glimpse into what it feels like to create the show from the inside, where each recording session is like a journey into an unknown Zone. The conversation also occasions sojourns into the flow state, or experience of pure durée, its implications for our conception of free will, and surprising parallels between modern materialists’ adherence to nihilism and ancient religious ascetic practices. Ultimately, JF and Phil explore the archetypal image of the wanderer as representative of Weird Studies’s existence so far, and of the kind of impact and legacy this project can have. N.B. Weird Studies will be on a haitus for the month of September, and will return on September 29. In the meantime: Support us on Patreon: Find us on Discord Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack References Robert Sapolsky, Interview with Pau Guinart Bruno Latour, French philosopher Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith Nina Simone, “Feeling Good” Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus Richard Wagner, Siegfried Lewis Carol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland John David Ebert, American cultural critic Patrick Harpur Daimonic Reality Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village Phil Ford, “What was Blogging?” Weird Studies, Episode 71 on Marshall McLuhan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the heart of Weird Studies, a podcast from SpectreVision Radio, you’ll find long-form conversations between Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel. Their discussions aren’t simple reviews or straightforward analyses; instead, they wander through the tangled undergrowth where art and philosophy meet, giving generous time to concepts that resist easy understanding and to creative works that fracture our ordinary sense of the world. This podcast deliberately lingers in that ambiguous space, treating the “weird” not as a genre but as a particular mode of experience-one that reveals the cracks in what we comfortably assume is real. Each episode feels like joining a deep, meandering dialogue between two friends who are both deeply knowledgeable and endlessly curious, covering a vast terrain that includes literature, film, music, and esoteric thought. It’s a show for anyone who suspects that the most profound truths are often found in the shadows, the anomalies, and the strangely beautiful. As part of the SpectreVision Radio network, which specializes in content that explores the uncanny edges of creativity, Weird Studies builds a unique community of listeners who are eager to think differently. You won’t find pat answers here, but you will encounter compelling questions and a shared sense of exploration that makes each installment a distinctive journey.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 230

Weird Studies
Podcast Episodes
Episode 27: Weird Music, Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:32
In this first of two episodes devoted to the music of the weird, Phil and JF discuss two works that have bowled them over: the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, used to powerful effect in Stanley Kubrick's Ey…
Episode 26: Living in a Glass Age, with Michael Garfield [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:17
Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transfo…
Episode 25: David Cronenberg's 'Naked Lunch' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:20:36
JF and Phil head for Interzone in an attempt to solve the enigma of Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's 1991 screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs' infamous 1959 novel. A treatise on addiction, a diagnosis of modern ills…
Episode 24: The Charlatan and the Magus, with Lionel Snell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:53
As Lionel Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, observes in his seminal esoteric essay, "The Charlatan and the Magus" (1984), the series of trumps in a tarot deck doesn't begin with the noble Emperor or august Hierophant, b…
Episode 23: On Presence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:43:49
Phil stops by JF's Canadian homestead for a raucous IRL conversation on the idea of presence. The range of topics includes objects of power, the magic of books, the mystery of the event, modernity's knack for making myth…
Episode 22: Divining the World with Joshua Ramey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:37
American philosopher Joshua Ramey, author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal, and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency, joins Phil and JF to discuss a philo…
Episode 21: The Trash Stratum - Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:11
The writings of underground filmmaker Jack Smith serve as a starting point for Phil and JF's second tour of the trash stratum. In their wanderings, they will uncover such moldy jewels as the 1944 film Cobra Woman, the ex…
Episode 20: The Trash Stratum - Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:42
Is the Holy Grail a crushed beer can in the gutter? JF and Phil consider the implications of Philip K. Dick's line, "the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum." Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley's Thoth…
Episode 19: Intermezzo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:28
After announcing that Weird Studies will be going to a bi-weekly release schedule for the summer, Phil and JF talk about how the podcast has gone so far and what's on the horizon (more guests!). Before long, they're digg…
Episode 18: Does 'Consciousness' Exist? - Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:31
JF and Phil finally get down to brass tacks with William James's essay "Does Consciousness Exist?" At the heart of this essay is the concept of what James calls "pure experience," the basic stuff of everything, only it i…