Podcast Episodes

Episode 197 - Sounding the Otherworld: On Bryn Chainey's 'Rabbit Trap'

In a rare surfacing in the contemporary world, JF and Phil discuss a film that has just been released. Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap is psychological horror in the tradition of Repulsion, Jacob’s Ladder…

Published on 10 hours ago

Weird Studies Trailer

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Published on 1 week, 3 days ago

On Trust

We're breaking up our late-summer pause with an audio extra originally recorded for our Patreon supporters. This episode also includes an essay JF wrote on the philosophy of Henri Bergson. A whole co…

Published on 2 weeks ago

Lost and Never Found: On 'The Blair Witch Project'

Of all the flavors of horror, few are as dreadful as that of being lost in the wilderness. In this episode, JF and Phil revisit The Blair Witch Project, the classic 1999 found-footage film that inspi…

Published on 1 month ago

On John Keel: Live at the Lily Dale Symposium, with Erik Davis

This marks the third year that Weird Studies is honoured to open the Lily Dale Symposium, organized each summer by photographer Shannon Taggart in the upstate New York community famed for its roots i…

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

Animal Songs, with Meredith Michael

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Meredith Michael—musicologist, podcaster, and Weird Studies production assistant—for a conversation about animal songs. The phrase is intentionally slippery…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

On Conversion, or Arousing the Bodhi-Mind

How do you become religious? What is a conversion experience? Does it happen all at once or gradually? What's the point of religion, anyway? These are questions that JF (a Catholic) and Phil (a Zenni…

Published on 2 months, 1 week ago

A Dream of Landscape: On Walking

Phil and JF first explored the mysteries of walking back in episode 59. That episode felt like a mere introduction—a tentative first step on a long and winding path. Now, 133 episodes later, they ret…

Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago

Theory, Philosophy, and Uranus

This conversation was originally recorded in August 2024 and released for our Patreon supporters. Weird Studies will be back with a new episode on June 25, 2025.

What is cultural theory? How is phil…

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago

Myth, History, and Form

This special release is a Patreon extra we’re making available to all listeners, in lieu of the official episode originally scheduled for today. As explained in the introduction, we will be back with…

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago