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, and elsewhere. With co-host J. F. Martel he is working on a book titled Weirding, to be published by Strange Attractor Press.
Phil is a pianist, rabid Wagnerite, crap Buddhist, degenerate fight fan, and avid consulter of the I Ching. He wishes that just for once he had an enthusiasm that he didn't have to apologize for or explain to his academic peers.
Phil Ford has hosted 196 Episodes.
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Episode 183: On Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha'
Episode | January 22nd, 2025 | 1 hr 21 mins
buddhism, enlightenment, literature, religion, transcendence
JF and Phil discuss Hesse's literary exploration of the spiritual journey.
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Episode 182: Providence of Evil: On Robert Eggers' 'Nosferatu'
Episode | January 8th, 2025 | 1 hr 20 mins
cinema, evil, horror, occult, paranormal, religion
Phil and JF discuss Rogert Eggers' reimagining of F. W. Murnau's classic vampire film.
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Holiday Bonus: Waiting for the Next Sentence
Episode | December 18th, 2024 | 44 mins 43 secs
mid-hiatus bonus, special episode, writing
In this conversation originally recorded for members of the Weird Studies Patreon, JF and Phil discuss certain challenges of the writer's craft.
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Episode 181: On 'The X Files,' with Meredith Michael
Episode | December 4th, 2024 | 1 hr 17 mins
cinema, conspiracy, epistemology, guest episode, meredith michael, paranormal, television
Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss the classic television series.
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Episode 180: The Player: On the Magician Card in the Tarot
Episode | November 20th, 2024 | 1 hr 21 mins
divination, magic, metaphysics, scholarship, tarot, trickster
Phil and JF resume their journey through the major trumps of the tarot with a discussion of the Magician card.
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Episode 179: The Final Frontier, with Lionel Snell
Episode | November 6th, 2024 | 1 hr 17 mins
guest episode, lionel snell, metaphysics, occult, psychology
Lionel Snell joins Phil and JF to discuss magic, metaphysics, and the enchantments of boredom.
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Episode 178: Edge of Reality: On John Carpenter's 'In the Mouth of Madness'
Episode | October 23rd, 2024 | 1 hr 12 mins
art, cinema, horror, hyperstition, metaphysics
A live recording of JF and Phil's conversation following a screening of John Carpenter's cult classic.
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Episode 177: Riddles in the Dark: On Fairy Tales, Interpretation, and 'Rapunzel'
Episode | October 9th, 2024 | 1 hr 27 mins
art, fairy tales, mythology, storytelling
Phil and JF discuss the weirdness of fairy tales as objects infinitely interpretable, yet resolutely unexplainable.
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Episode 176: On Charles Burns' 'Black Hole' and the Medium of Comics
Episode | September 25th, 2024 | 1 hr 21 mins
art, body horror, comics, formalism, grotesque
JF and Phil discuss Charles Burns' masterful graphic novel "Black Hole."
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Mid-Break Bonus: The Quiet Earth
Episode | August 21st, 2024 | 1 hr 1 min
art, bonus episodes, cinema, clowns, literature, speculative fiction
A rollicking ride of a bonus episode, previously exclusive to our Patreon supporters.
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Episode 175: Don't Look Now: Live at Lily Dale
Episode | August 7th, 2024 | 1 hr 58 mins
death, ghost stories, grief, literature, live recordings, paranormal, time
At Shannon Taggart's annual Symposium on the Science of Things Spiritual in Lily Dale, New York, Phil and JF record a live episode on Daphne du Maurier's experiment in unreality, "Don't Look Now."
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Episode 174: Magick and Enlightenment, with Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford
Episode | July 24th, 2024 | 1 hr 29 mins
enlightenment, magic, metaphysics, occult, religion
Magical practitioners Duncan Barford and Alan Chapman join JF and Phil to talk about magic, truth, and the Holy Guardian Angel.
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Episode 173: By Heart: On Memory, Poetry, and Form
Episode | July 10th, 2024 | 1 hr 18 mins
aesthetics, formalism, literature, memory, poetry
JF and Phil try to recite classic poems by heart in this discussion on the magic of memory.
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Episode 172: Head Over Heels: On the Hanged Man of the Tarot
Episode | June 26th, 2024 | 1 hr 19 mins
archetypes, occult, psychology, religion, tarot
Phil and JF continue their series on the tarot with a discussion of the twelfth major arcanum.
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Episode 171: The Beauty and the Horror
Episode | June 13th, 2024 | 1 hr 8 mins
aesthetics, beauty, cinema, literature, metaphysics, music
JF and Phil discuss the interplay between beauty and horror in art, examining how each enhances the other.
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Episode 170: Art is Another Word for Truth: On Orson Welles's 'F for Fake'
Episode | May 29th, 2024 | 1 hr 25 mins
aesthetics, art, cinema, forgery, magic
JF and Phil discuss Orson Welles's 1973 film essay on the strange overlap of fraud, art, and truth.