Episode 52: On Beauty

Episode 52: On Beauty

Author: SpectreVision Radio July 31, 2019 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 contrivance rooted in politics and history, an illusion that exists only in human heads, for human reasons. On this view, a world without us would be a world without beauty. But in this episode Phil and JF explore two texts, by James Hillman and Peter Schjeldahl, that dare to challenge the modern orthodoxy. For Hillman and Schjeldahl, to experience the beautiful is precisely the break out of human bondage and touch the Outside. Beauty may even be one of the few truly objective experiences anyone could hope for. Peter Schjeldahl, “Notes on Beauty,“ in Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics James Hillman, “The Practice of Beauty,” in Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics C.G. Jung's retreat, Bollingen Tower Ugly public art in Palo Alto Dave Hickey, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy Deleuze and Guattari, “Of the Refrain,” from A Thousand Plateaus Roger Scruton, Beauty Weird Studies, Episode 36 -- On Hyperstition Weird Studies, Episode 33 -- The Fine Art of Changing the Subject: On Duchamp's "Fountain" Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty Ingri D'Aulaires, D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light God, Book of Job 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 124: Dark Night Radio of the Soul, with Duncan Barford [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:28:30
For several episodes now, Phil and JF have been circling what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul, that moment in the spiritual journey where all falls a way and an abyss seems to crack open beneath o…
Episode 123: Off-Week Patreon Bonus: On Modern Miracles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:28
Every off-week, JF and Phil record a bonus episode for Patreon supporters. The conversations on that stream are shorter, less formal, and more improvisitory than those of the flagship show. To give the wider public a gli…
Episode 122: Spirals and Crooked Lines: On the Star Card in the Tarot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:21:34
The Star is one of the most iconic of the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck. It is also one of the most ambiguous. A woman is shown emptying two urns of water onto the parched ground. She is flanked by nascent p…
Episode 121: Dream Theater: On 'Mandy' and 'The Band Wagon' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:20
In this episode, each of your hosts bullies the other into watching a movie he would normally not touch with a bargepole. Phil has been (unsuccessfully) trying to get JF to watch Vincente Minnelli's 1953 musical comedy T…
Episode 120: On Radical Mystery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:55
Though it is seldom acknowledged in the weirdosphere, there is a difference between weirdness and mystery. Most of the time, the Weird confronts us with a problem, an impersonal epistemic obstacle which we can always bel…
Episode 118: The Unseen and the Unnamed, with Meredith Michael [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:44
In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael to discuss two strange and unsettling short stories: J.G. Ballard's "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" (1964) and Urs…
Episode 117: Time is a Child at Play: On the Mystery of Games [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:01
The topic of games and play has fascinated JF and Phil since the launch of Weird Studies. Way back in 2018, they recorded back-to-back episodes on tabletop roleplaying games and fighting sports, and more recently, they d…
Episode 116: On 'Blade Runner' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:29:29
In his 1978 bestseller The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described humans as "survival machines" whose sole purpose is the replication of genes. All of culture needed to be understood as a side-effect, if not an epipheno…