Phil Ford
Co-Host of Weird Studies
Phil is an associate professor of musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He is the author of the book Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (a cultural history of hipness from the 1930s through the 1960s), the long-running blog Dial 'M' for Musicology, and various essays that have appeared in Representations, Journal of Musicology, Musical Quarterly, Daedalus, North American Review, and elsewhere. With co-host J. F. Martel he is writing a book titled Weirding, to be published by Strange Attractor Press.
Phil is also a classical pianist, meditator, assistant teacher at Open Mind Zen Indiana, lapsed magician, and avid consulter of the I Ching.
Phil Ford has hosted 201 Episodes.
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Episode 131: Knocking on the Abyssal Door: Live at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
Episode | September 21st, 2022 | 1 hr 11 mins
intelligence, live recording, magic, metaphysics, science, synchronicity
Phil and J.F. talk about magic, synchronicity, and prophecy to an audience composed of scientists, scholars, and artists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
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Episode 130: Holiday Memories
Episode | September 7th, 2022 | 1 hr 16 mins
academia, epistemology, festivals, politics
Phil and JF discuss their recent adventures in the United Kingdom.
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Episode 129: Luminous Miasma: On Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"
Episode | August 3rd, 2022 | 1 hr 33 mins
JF and Phil visit the House of Usher.
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Episode 128: Demon Workshop: On Victoria Nelson's 'Neighbor George'
Episode | July 19th, 2022 | 1 hr 27 mins
gothic, grotesque, literature, metaphysics, monsters, psychology
Phil and JF discuss Victoria Nelson's novel of psychological horror.
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Episode 127: Leaving the Mechanical Dollhouse: On Abeba Birhane's "The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity"
Episode | July 6th, 2022 | 1 hr 16 mins
artificial intelligence, ethics, metaphysics, politics, science fiction, technology
JF and Phil discuss Abeba Birhane's essay on the ethical, psychological, and political cost of universal automation.
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Episode 126: The Daemon Speaks, with Matt Cardin
Episode | June 22nd, 2022 | 1 hr 21 mins
horror, literature, mysticism, religion, teaching
Matt Cardin joins JF and Phil to discuss daimonic reality and the idea of dark enlightenment.
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Episode 125: Strange Brews: Weird Studies Live at Illuminated Brew Works
Episode | June 8th, 2022 | 1 hr 36 mins
alchemy, beer, metaphysics, occult, tea, witchcraft
Phil, Meredith, and JF discuss ritual and potion-making in a live recording hosted by Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago.
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Episode 124: Dark Night Radio of the Soul, with Duncan Barford
Episode | May 25th, 2022 | 1 hr 27 mins
meditation, occult, psychology
Spiritual practitioner Duncan Barford joins JF and Phil to talk about the Dark Night of the Soul.
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Episode 123: Off-Week Patreon Bonus: On Modern Miracles
Episode | May 18th, 2022 | 39 mins 53 secs
metaphysics, miracles, science, spirals, technology
A free Patreon episode exploring more of the affordances of a spiral universe.
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Episode 122: Spirals and Crooked Lines: On the Star Card in the Tarot
Episode | May 11th, 2022 | 1 hr 20 mins
fate, metaphysics, occult, tarot
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Episode 121: Dream Theater: On 'Mandy' and 'The Band Wagon'
Episode | April 27th, 2022 | 1 hr 3 mins
cinema, dance, dreams, horror, metaphysics
Phil and JF discuss the film musical comedy "The Band Wagon" and the psychedelic horror film "Mandy" and discover that these films actually have a lot in common.
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Episode 120: On Radical Mystery
Episode | April 13th, 2022 | 1 hr 17 mins
death, existentialism, initiation, meditation, mystery
JF and Phil cope with the unexpungable fact of mystery.
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Episode 119: Behind the Cosmic Curtain: On Stanislaw Lem's 'The New Cosmogony,' with Meredith Michael
Episode | March 30th, 2022 | 1 hr 7 mins
gnosticism, literature, meredith michael, metaphysics, science, science fiction
Meredith, Phil, and JF dig into Stanislaw Lem's short story, "The New Cosmogony."
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Episode 118: The Unseen and the Unnamed, with Meredith Michael
Episode | March 16th, 2022 | 1 hr 16 mins
fantasy, guest episode, literature, meredith michael, metaphysics, short stories
Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin and J.G. Ballard.
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Episode 117: Time is a Child at Play: On the Mystery of Games
Episode | March 2nd, 2022 | 1 hr 8 mins
ethics, games, metaphysics, play
Phil and JF discuss the mystery of games and the play function in culture and cosmos.
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Episode 116: On 'Blade Runner'
Episode | February 16th, 2022 | 1 hr 28 mins
cinema, philosophy, science fiction, technology
JF and Phil discuss philosophical ideas in Ridley Scott's 1982 film.