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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Episode 106: The Wanderer: On Weird Studies