Episode 89: On Ishmael Reed's 'Mumbo Jumbo,' or, Why We Need More Magical Thinking
Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo is a conspiracy thriller, a postmodern experiment, a revolutionary tract, a celebration, and a magical working. It is a novel that, over and above prophetically d...
6 Jan 20211h 20min
Holiday Bonus: Magic, Madness, and Sadness
Weird Studies will launch its fourth season on January 6th, 2021. But to celebtrate the end of very strange year, we thought we'd release a conversation which until now was available only to our top-t...
21 Dec 202050min
Episode 88: On Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean's 'Mr Punch'
Before Coraline, before American Gods, in the early days of the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman collaborated with Dave McKean on some truly groundbreaking graphic novels: Violent Cases (1987), Signal to N...
9 Dec 20201h 20min
Episode 87: Glyphs, Rifts, and Ecstasy: On Arthur Machen's Vision of Art
It would be wrong to describe Arthur Machen's Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (1902) as a work of nonfiction, since the book features a narrative frame that is as moody and irreal as ...
25 Nov 20201h 7min
Episode 86: On E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman," and Freud's Sequel to It
The German polymath E. T. A. Hoffmann is one of the founding figures of what we now call weird literature. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss one of his most memorable tales, "Der Sandmann." Origin...
11 Nov 20201h 24min
Episode 85: On 'The Wicker Man'
Since its release in 1973, Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man has exerted a profound influence on the development of horror cinema, a rich vein of folk music, and the modern pagan revival more generally. A...
28 Okt 20201h 17min
Episode 84: Mona Lisa Smile: On the Empress, the Third Card in the Tarot
This second instalment in our series on the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck features the Empress. As Aleister Crowley writes in The Book of Thoth, this card is probably the most difficult t...
14 Okt 20201h 19min
Episode 83: On David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'
David Lynch's Lost Highway was released in 1997, five years after Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me elicited a fusillade of boos and hisses at Cannes. The Twin Peaks prequel's poor reception allegedly sen...
30 Sep 20201h 19min
