Episode 41: On Speculative Fiction, with Matt Cardin

Episode 41: On Speculative Fiction, with Matt Cardin

Author: SpectreVision Radio February 27, 2019 Duration: 1:00:22
Neil Gaiman wrote, "If literature is the world, then fantasy and horror are twin cities, divided by a river of black water." Flame Tree Publishing underwrites this claim with their recent publication, The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy and Horror. The book is a veritable gazetteer of these two cities in the heartland of the imaginal world. Writer and scholar Matt Cardin, founding editor of the marvellous [Teeming Brain](www.teemingbrain.com), wrote a chapter for the book focusing on the books and films of the Sixties and Seventies. In this episode, he joins JF and Phil to discuss the kinship of horror and fantasy, the modern ghettoization of mythopoeic art, the prophetic reach of speculative fiction, and the "cauldron of cultural transformation" that was the Sixties and Seventies. Header Image by Moralist, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy and Horror Matt Cardin's website The Teeming Brain American literary critic S. T. Joshi British writer and scholar Roger Luckhurst Neil Gaiman, introduction to The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death The concept of "folk psychology" H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" H. P. Lovecraft, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" James Curcio, Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice (forthcoming) American author Thomas Ligotti British author Arthur Machen Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Ian McEwen, Enduring Love Weird Studies, Episode 36: On Hyperstition J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968) The Lord of the Rings animated film (Ralph Bakshi, 1978) Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time The Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game (Chaosium) Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978) William Irwin Thompson, At the Edge of History Interview with Twilight Zone luminary George Clayton Johnson The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) Stephen King, Salem's Lot Special Guest: Matt Cardin. 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 17: Does 'Consciousness' Exist? - Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:05
In this first part of their discussion of William James' classic essay in radical empiricism, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", Phil and JF talk about the various ways we use the slippery C-word in contemporary culture. The…
Episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's 'Genjokoan' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:57
JF and Phil tackle Genjokoan, a profound and puzzling work of philosophy by Dogen Zenji. In it, the 13th-century Zen master ponders the question, "If everything is already enlightened, why practice Zen?" As a lapsed Zen…
Episode 15: On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' - Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:04
In this second of a two-part conversation on Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker, Phil and JF explore the film's prophetic dimension, relating it to Samuel R. Delany's classic science-fiction novel Dhalgren, the cultura…
Episode 14: On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' - Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:33
Journey into the Zone to uncover some of the strange artifacts buried in Tarkovsky's cinematic masterpiece, Stalker (1979). In this first of a two-part conversation, Phil and JF discuss a poem by Tarkovsky's dad, compare…
Episode 13: The Obscure: On the Philosophy of Heraclitus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:21:32
Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of the great pre-Socratic thinkers. Called the Obscure and the Weeping Philosopher, he left behind a collection of fragments so mysterious and pregnant with meaning that they continue to puz…
Episode 12: The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:28:50
American filmmaker Rodney Ascher is a master of the weird documentary. Whether he be exploring wild interpretations of a classic horror film in Room 237, bracketing the phenomenon of sleep paralysis in The Nightmare, stu…
Episode 11: Art is a Haunting Spirit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:25
M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" is one of the most fascinating, and most chilling, examples of the classic ghost story. In this episode, Phil and JF discover what this tale of haunted images and buried secrets tells us abou…
Weird Stories: M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:04
M. R. James has been hailed as the unrivalled maser of the classic ghost tale, and his powers are at their zenith in "The Mezzotint," a story that first appeared in his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. In…
Episode 10: Philip K. Dick: Adrift in the Multiverse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:24:13
In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel unive…
Episode 9: On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:33
The plan was to discuss the introduction to Aleister Crowley's classic work, Magick in Theory and Practice (1924), a powerful text on the nature and purpose of magical practice. JF and Phil stick to the plan for the firs…