Weird Studies

Having taken up the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in episode 207, Phil and JF turn to part two, The Two Towers. Together, they peel back the husk of familiarity to reveal the strange object underneath: a story about stories, about life and destiny in a storied world.

Music: "Wotan Hangs" from Weird Studies Vol. 1 and "For the Sun" from Weird Studies Vol 3.

Support Weird Studies on Patreon.

Upcoming Events:

JF's course on the metaphysics of the horror genre, The Awful Truth, starts September 17, 2026, on Weirdosphere.

Erik Davis's course on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? starts October 1, 2026, on Weirdosphere.

Click here for details on JF and Phil's appearance at the Brooklyn Public Library on September 26, 2026. Part of the Dream Mapping Symposium, organized by The Dream Mapping Project and the Dream Library Foundation. Attendance is free.

References

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Viktor Schlovsky, “Art as Technique”

Arthur Machen, “A Fragment of Life”

Joshua Cutchin, Fourth Wall Phantoms

Cristina Campo “On Fairy Tales”

J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
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Episode 218 will drop at the end of our summer break on September 9, 2026. Today, enjoy this recent audio extra, originally released for members of the Weird Studies Patreon. In the intro, JF announces two important Weirdosphere events: a talk on language in the age of AI by Emma Stamm, and a new six-week course on the idea of truth in horror cinema and literature. To learn more and enroll, visit Weirdosphere.

The musical piece following the intro is "Hypnagogic," from PY Martel's recent album Weird Studies Vol. 3.
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Researcher Asti Hustvedt joins Phil and JF to discuss a talk she gave at the Lily Dale Symposium this year entitled "Bibliophantoms." The question: What does it mean to "get lost" in a book? Asti's answer, drawing on her research in nineteenth-century neuroscience and spirit mediumship, amounts to a genuine weirding of the act of reading.

Asti Hustvedt is an independent scholar and writer with a PhD in French
literature. Her work examines the entangled histories of science,
psychology, literature, and the occult, with a particular focus on
hysteria and Spiritualism. She is the author of Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris, named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times and a Book of the Year by The Independent, and the editor of The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy and Perversion in Fin-de-Siècle France.
She is currently writing a book on hysteria and the supernatural that
examines how Eusapia Palladino and other mediums challenged—and helped shape—the emerging sciences of the mind.

New Course! To learn more on JF's upcoming online course on truth in horror literature and cinema, visit Weirdosphere.

Image: Detail of The Reader by Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942)

Music: "L'Esprit d'escalier" from Weird Studies vol. 3, and "Distant Early Warning" from Weird Studies vol 2.

REFERENCES

Asti Hustvedt, Medical Muses

Jean-Martin Charcot, French physician

Pierre Janet, French physician

Lon Milo DuQuette, It’s All in Your Head

Saint Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic

Saint Augustine, Confessions

Paul Auster, American writer

Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian French philosopher

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Lionel Snell, Introduction to Freya Aswynn’s Power and Principles of the Runes
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"Now and then, a mysterious life and potency will flicker out of an artwork and confront you." So began "Artworks Are People Too," a talk Phil presented at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute earlier this summer. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the implications of this idea that some artworks break the mould of the inanimate and act as persons in the world. Are artworks mere creations, or creatures too?

To enroll in Questionable Cinema, our live summer series happening in August 2026, visit Weirdosphere.

Music: "Hypnagogic," from Weird Studies Vol. 3.

References

Henri Corbin, Alone with the Alone

Alfred Hallowell, "Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and Worldview"

Martin Buber, I and Thou

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”

Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life

Carl Jung, “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry”

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Pyschomagic

Dan Sperber, “The Causal Chains of Culture”

Paul Stoller, In Sorcery’s Shadow

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo

Holly Cusack-McVeigh, Stories Find You

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

Ikea lamp commercial

Sam Raimi (dir.), Evil Dead II
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Owing to circumstances preventing us from releasing a new show this week, we are offering you one from the archives. This episode was originally released on our Patreon in March 2026. In it, we discuss the splendour and squalor of Victorian London, kung-fu bobbies, the (mis)alignment of society and technology, post-apocalyptic optimism, the emancipating genius of tabletop roleplaying games, the human after AI, and a reason for creating works of art.

A new episode of Weird Studies will drop on July 22.

For more information on Questionable Cinema, Phil and JF's upcoming online course, visit Weirdosphere.

To listen to more tracks from Weird Studies Vol. 3 and purchase the download or LP, visit Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp.
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