Episode 69: Special Episode: On Some Mental Effects of the Pandemic
What is there to say about the COVID-19 virus that hasn't already been said, over and over again, all around the world, in quaratined houses and on TV and social media and countless Zoom chats ... what can we say that you haven't heard? Well, probably nothing. But we are now at the point where we realize that the real importance of the things we say is not their content, but the mere fact of saying them. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and at a time when we have been driven into separate solitudes, we are discovering that the real meaning of our utterances might be something like "hello, are you there?" and "I am here, talking to you." In that spirit, Phil and JF have a conversation about William James's essay "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake," partly to discuss the ways that it's relevant to our present circumstances and the ways it's not, but mostly to make human connections, both with each other and with Weird Studies listeners.
\n\nAs JF says, stay close, but keep your distance.
\n\nREFERENCES
\n\nWilliam James, "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake"
\nWilliam James, Writings 1902-1910
\nNoel Black (director), "To See the Invisible Man", 2nd segment of episode 16 of The Twilight Zone (1985-86)
\nWeird Studies no. 29, \u201cOn Lovecraft\u201d
\nWeird Studies no. 64, \u201cDreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea\u201d
\nWeird Studies no. 67, \u201cGoblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On Hellier\u201d
\nMartin Heidegger, \u201c\u2018Only a God Can Save Us\u2019: The Spiegel Interview"
\nBruno Latour, "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns"
\nH.P. Lovecraft, \u201cNyarlathotep\u201d