In this episode, Weird Studies turns meta, reflecting on the peculiar medium that is podcasting, and how it has shaped the Weird Studies project itself. JF and Phil provide a glimpse into what it feels like to create the show from the inside, where each recording session is like a journey into an unknown Zone. The conversation also occasions sojourns into the flow state, or experience of pure durée, its implications for our conception of free will, and surprising parallels between modern materialists’ adherence to nihilism and ancient religious ascetic practices. Ultimately, JF and Phil explore the archetypal image of the wanderer as representative of Weird Studies’s existence so far, and of the kind of impact and legacy this project can have.

N.B. Weird Studies will be on a haitus for the month of September, and will return on September 29. In the meantime:

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References

Robert Sapolsky, Interview with Pau Guinart

Bruno Latour, French philosopher

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

Nina Simone, “Feeling Good”

Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus

Richard Wagner, Siegfried

Lewis Carol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

John David Ebert, American cultural critic

Patrick Harpur Daimonic Reality

Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village

Phil Ford, “What was Blogging?”

Weird Studies, Episode 71 on Marshall McLuhan

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