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On Ishmael Reed's 'Mumbo Jumbo,' or, Why We Need More Magical Thinking
Episode 89
Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo is a conspiracy thriller, a postmodern experiment, a revolutionary tract, a celebration, and a magical…
5 years ago
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 …
5 years ago
On Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean's 'Mr Punch'
Episode 88
Before Coraline, before American Gods, in the early days of the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman collaborated with Dave McKean on some truly grou…
5 years, 1 month ago
Glyphs, Rifts, and Ecstasy: On Arthur Machen's Vision of Art
Episode 87
It would be wrong to describe Arthur Machen's Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (1902) as a work of nonfiction, since the boo…
5 years, 1 month ago
On E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman," and Freud's Sequel to It
Episode 86
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 dis…
5 years, 2 months ago
On 'The Wicker Man'
Episode 85
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 o…
5 years, 2 months ago
Mona Lisa Smile: On the Empress, the Third Card in the Tarot
Episode 84
This second instalment in our series on the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck features the Empress. As Aleister Crowley writes in T…
5 years, 3 months ago
On David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'
Episode 83
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 C…
5 years, 3 months ago
On The I Ching
Episode 82
The Book of Changes, or I Ching, is more than an ancient text. It's a metaphysical guide, a fun game, and -- to your hosts at least -- a lif…
5 years, 3 months ago
Gnostic Lit: On M. John Harrison's 'The Course of the Heart'
Episode 81
The British writer M. John Harrison is responsible for some of the most significant incursions of the Weird into the literary imagination of…
5 years, 4 months ago