Episode 182: Providence of Evil: On Robert Eggers' 'Nosferatu'

Episode 182: Providence of Evil: On Robert Eggers' 'Nosferatu'

Author: SpectreVision Radio January 8, 2025 Duration: 1:20:50
In this episode, JF and Phil examine the myth of the vampire through the lens of Robert Eggers' latest film, Nosferatu, a reimagining of F. W. Murnau's German Expressionist masterpiece. Topics covered include the nature of vampires, the symbolism of evil, the implicit theology of Eggers' film (compared with that of Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula), the need for shadow work, as well as the power of real introspection and self-sacrifice. 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 Robert Eggers (dir.), Nosferatu F. W. Murnau (dir.), Nosferatu Mel Brooks (dir.), Dracula: Dead and Loving It Francis Ford Coppola (dir.), Bram Stoker’s Dracula Bram Stoker, Dracula Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde David James Smith, “The Archaeologist Couple who Unearthed a Field Full of Vampires” Robert Eggers, The Witch Richard Strauss, Salome Weird Studies, Episode 156 on “The Secret History” Rudolf Steiner, “Lucifer and Ahriman” Richard Wagner, Ring Cycle 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 56: On Jean Gebser, with Jeremy D. Johnson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:22
The German poet and philosopher Jean Gebser's major work, The Ever-Present Origin, is a monumental study of the evolution of consciousness from prehistory to posthistory. For Gebser, consciousness adopts different "struc…
Episode 54: Lobsters, Pianos, and Hidden Gods [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:49
"All things feel," Pythagoas said. Panpsychism, the belief that consciousnes is a property of all things and not limited to the human brain, is back in vogue -- with good reason. The problem of how inert matter could giv…
Episode 53: Astral Jet Lag: On William Gibson's 'Pattern Recognition' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:49
William Gibson's Pattern Recognition was published in 2003, in the wake of 9/11. You would think that a novel about the early Internet's effects on the collective psyche would feel dated today. But Gibson's insight into…
Episode 52: On Beauty [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:32
The idea that beauty might denote an actual quality of the world, something outside the human frame, is one of the great taboos of modern intellectual thought. Beauty, we are almost universally told, is a cultural contri…
Episode 51: Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:36:26
Through her fiction, Flannery O'Connor reenvisioned life as a supernatural war wherein each soul becomes the site of a clash of mysterious, almost incomprehensible forces. Her first novel, Wise Blood, tells the story of…
Episode 50: Demogorgon: On 'Stranger Things' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:36:31
The Duffer Brothers' hit series Stranger Things is many things: an exemplary piece of entertainment in the summer blockbuster mold, a fresh take on the "kids on bikes" subgenre of science fiction, a loving pastiche of 19…
Episode 49: Out of Time: Nietzsche on History [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:42
In his essay "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," Nietzsche attacks the notion that humans are totally determined by the historical forces that shape their physical and mental environment. Where other phi…
Episode 48: Walking the Tightrope with Erik Davis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:09
Journalist and historian of religion Erik Davis joins Phil and JF to talk about his latest magnum opus, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. In this masterwork of weird scholarship…
Episode 47: Machines of Loving Grace: Technology and the Unabomber [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:24
Made in 2003, Lutz Dammbeck's documentary The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet is a film about many things, but the gist of it is something like what William Burroughs called the doctrine of control. We live in…