Very Bad Wizards

David faces his greatest fear as he and Tamler dive into Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner The Denial of Death. Blending existentialist ideas within a psychoanalytic framework, Becker argues ...

25 Jun 20241h 31min

David and Tamler dive into the mysteries at the heart of Park Chan-wook's deeply disturbing masterpiece "Oldboy" (2003). An ordinary man, Oh Dae-su, is imprisoned for 15 years in an old, windowless ho...

11 Jun 20242h 12min

It's an old-school episode as David and Tamler dive into some intriguing research on the origins of cultural differences. Two neighboring communities in communist China were assigned to be wheat farme...

28 Mai 20241h 25min

David and Tamler choose an episode topic that will define the identity and meaning of the Very Bad Wizards podcast going forward – our top 3 existentialist movies. Plus, you're gonna be shocked to hea...

15 Mai 20241h 22min

David and Tamler talk about Caitrin Keiper's wonderful sprawling essay on elephant life and society and the many philosophical questions surrounding these extraordinary creatures. What kind of mental ...

30 Apr 20241h 23min

A Rabbi is found dead in a hotel room, stabbed in the chest. The room is filled with Kabbalah texts and a single page in an typewriter that reads "The first letter of the name has been written." The c...

16 Apr 20241h 25min

We dig into the biggest rivalry in Tamler's profession, analytic vs. continental philosophy. Are analytic philosophers truly the rigorous, precise, clear thinkers they take themselves to be? And is co...

26 Mar 20241h 22min

Phil Ford and J.F. Martel from the great "Weird Studies" podcast join us for a whirling discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's mesmerizing tale of decadence and disease "The Masque of the Red Death." We also...

12 Mar 20241h 39min