Weird Studies - my definition:
I classify "weird fiction" as not necessarily a genre-in-itself, instead it operates in the interstices of mainstream genres, creating through poetic prose, vivid imagery, hallucinatory experiences, existential angst, dream logic and shocking stories, a powerful effect upon the reader, provoking them to start to see the mundane world with a slant. If you look at the etymology of 'wyrd' it originates as the "power to control destiny" (no doubt in a magical or ritual sense) and morphs to the latter "weird" meaning of "unearthly" or strange. These stories stay with you, taking root deep inside your consciousness, reverberating like the ripples of a deep pond disturbed by a thrown rock and provoke you to rethink what you have always taken for granted. There is a commercial genre called "the new weird" (also an older pulp magazine "weird" usually involving cosmic horror) and some of these books/authors would be slotted into my broad genre classification here (many are not), but in the spirit of actual weirdness I include other books/films that operate under the aesthetic classification described above without being marketed as "new weird." The disturbance to perceived reality also may take place through a decoding/encoding process that challenge and restructure (exposing the myths and inconsistencies) dominant narratives/pathways (also see situationist détournement and derive). Often these weird narratives represent/present a dream logic as being just as important/relevant as our waking logic. The purpose is to expose the cracks in the foundations of controlling narratives, destabilizing them through weird narratives that shake the assured assumptions of its adherents. The concepts of carnivalesque revelry and the dialogic nature of consciousness as theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin are equally important, in that they involve the reversal of a dominant order and/or an exposure of the fantasy of the controlling order, in the process revealing the many perspectives/voices that are silenced/masked. As disturbing as these can be for many, perhaps the most problematic aspect of many weird narratives would be the decentering of humans (as the center of the universe) and explorations/recognitions of non-human perspectives. Importantly, in the context of my own American culture, this also involves narrative & theoretical displacement of our particular hegemonic way of seeing & being as the baseline for thinking about and understanding the world. In film studies there has also been a classification of Mind Fuck films which would be included here. All of these can provide a cathartic release from the anxiety/terror of the really weird situation we are living through and the twisted creatures that our at the helm of planet earth. [Editorial note: my definition was originally written during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic]. Under no circumstance is weird meant in a derogatory way. Anyone who does a deep dive into science, especially theories of consciousness and reality, knows that science is seriously weird. I appreciate works that challenge our constructed reality, pushing us to see that there is not just one way. Also it should be understood that what seems weird to some may seem obvious and normal to others. One of the great benefits of learning across time and space/places is that it can, following Bertolt Brecht, "make the familiar strange." Michael Dean Benton (May 2020; revised July 2022)
My aim is multi-pronged: 1) resist the initial impulse toward criticism 2) focus on the characteristics of belief or the vision of creativity 3) treat all people as having a concrete worldview that they have thought through 4) pay attention to patterns/rituals and stay aware of inconsistencies/contradictions 5) keep my critical awareness engaged even when I stay open to different ways of seeing/being 6) seek a wide range of historical and cultural examples/histories.
Bibliography (Print Culture):
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Monster Theory: Reading Culture. ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. University of Minnesota Press, 1996: 3 - 25.
Creed, Babara. Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema. Taylor and Francis, 2022. ["This follow-up to the classic text of The Monstrous-Feminine analyses those contemporary films which explore social justice issues such as women’s equality, violence against women, queer relationships, race and the plight of the planet and its multi-species. Examining a new movement – termed by Creed as Feminist New Wave Cinema – The Return of the Monstrous-Feminine explores a significant change that has occurred over the past two decades in the representation of the monstrous-feminine in visual discourse. The Monstrous-Feminine is a figure in revolt on a journey through the dark night of abjection. Taking particular interest in women directors who create the figure of the Monstrous-Feminine, in cinema that foregrounds everyday horrors in addition to classic horror, Creed looks at a range of diverse films including The Babadook, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Nomadland, Carol, Raw, Revenge, and the television series The Handmaid’s Tale. These films center on different forms of revolt, from inner revolt to social, supernatural and violent revolt, which appear in Feminist New Wave Cinema. These relate in the main to the emergence of a range of social protest movements that have gathered momentum in the new millennium and given voice to new theoretical and critical discourses. These include: third and fourth wave feminism, the #MeToo movement, queer theory, race theory, the critique of anthropocentrism and human animal theory. These theoretical discourses have played a key role in influencing Feminist New Wave Cinema whose films are distinctive, stylish and diverse. This is an essential companion to the original classic text and is ideal for students in Gender and Media, Gender and Horror, Gender and Film and Feminist Film theory courses."]
Fisher, Mark. The Weird and the Eerie. Repeater Books, 2016. ["What exactly are the ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’? ... Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to these two modes. The ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’ are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own properties. Both have often been associated with Horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’ both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling. Perhaps a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of liminal concepts such as the ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’. These two modes will be analysed with reference to the work of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, M.R. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer, and Christopher Nolan."]
Martel, J.F. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice. Basic Books, 2025. ["Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present. Received opinion holds that art is culturally-determined and relative. We are told that whether a picture, a movement, a text, or sound qualifies as a “work of art” largely depends on social attitudes and convention. Drawing on examples ranging from Paleolithic cave paintings to modern pop music and building on the ideas of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Gilles Deleuze, Carl Jung, and others, JF Martel argues that art is an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture and even society. Art is free of politics and ideology. Paradoxically, that is what makes it a force of liberation wherever it breaks through the trance of humdrum existence. Like the act of dreaming, artistic creation is fundamentally mysterious. It is a gift from beyond the field of the human, and it connects us with realities that, although normally unseen, are crucial components of a living world. While holding this to be true of authentic art, the author acknowledges the presence—overwhelming in our media-saturated age—of a false art that seeks not to liberate but to manipulate and control. Against this anti-artistic aesthetic force, which finds some of its most virulent manifestations in modern advertising, propaganda, and pornography, true art represents an effective line of defense. Martel argues that preserving artistic expression in the face of our contemporary hyper-aestheticism is essential to our own survival. Art is more than mere ornament or entertainment; it is a way, one leading to what is most profound in us. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice places art alongside languages and the biosphere as a thing endangered by the onslaught of predatory capitalism, spectacle culture, and myopic technological progress. The book is essential reading for visual artists, musicians, writers, actors, dancers, filmmakers, and poets. It will also interest anyone who has ever been deeply moved by a work of art, and for all who seek a way out of the web of deception and vampiric amusement that the current world order has woven around us."]
Documentaries:
The American Nightmare (USA: Adam Simon, 2000) This is available for free on Youtube. How the horror genre changed post 1968.
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (USA: Xavier Burgin, 2019) Description: "Delving into a century of genre films that by turns utilized, caricatured, exploited, sidelined, and finally embraced them, this is the untold history of black Americans in Hollywood through their connection to the horror genre." Here is a collection of resources that go with the film: Horror Noire syllabus
Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue: The Evolution of Horror (USA: Andrew Monument, 2009) This is available for free on Youtube (click on the link to watch). It is a look at the socio-political context of horror films.
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (USA: Kier-La Janisse, 2021) Description: "Explores the folk horror phenomenon from its beginnings in a trilogy of films – Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man – through its proliferation on British television in the 1970s and its culturally specific manifestations in American, Asian, Australian and European horror, to the genre’s revival over the last decade."
Online resources:
366 Weird Movies ["The backbone of this site is the project to create the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies of all time. Why make a list of 366 movies? That’s one for every day of the year, with a spare for leap years. As every day is associated with a Catholic saint, we believe every day should have its own weird movie. Most of the movies selected are both weird and good. Sometimes, if a movie is very weird, it will make the list ahead of a better movie. Sometimes, if a movie is very good, it does not have to be quite as weird. The key determinant is that each movie gives me that I-know-it-when-I-see-it feeling; a film that makes my skin crawl, my jaw drop, or just causes me to mutter to myself, “Now that’s weird….” We are very cautious in certifying a movie as weird—we may consider and review 4 or 5 movies for every one we decide to put on the List. But just because a movie does not make the List on the first ballot doesn’t mean it’s forever out of contention. From time to time, we’ll reconsider and promote movies that we once thought borderline to the exalted ranks of the Weirdest Movies Ever Made."]
Cooperrider, Kensy. "WEIRD: Adventures of an Acronym." Many Minds (July 1, 2020) ["The topic is the acronym WEIRD—maybe you’ve heard it used. It stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It’s become a shorthand for the idea that people in WEIRD societies are a bit unusual relative to the rest our species. The term was first introduced 10 years ago. On this episode I talk about its origins and the far-reaching influence it’s had since."]
Fontainelle, Earl. "Methodologies for the study of Magic." The Secret History of Western Esotericism #5 (September 20, 2017) [MB - OK, quick, what comes to your mind when you hear the word magic? I'm really grooving on this podcast. I like the way Earl Fontainelle looks at these subjects from multiple angles. Here in order to start off an exploration of understandings/histories of magic, he breaks down the etymology, histories, and disinformation surrounding the word/concept. Highly recommended for those that practice magic, those that think magic is silly/dangerous, those that have deep religious beliefs (especially of a Manichean nature), those that are rigidly atheist (I would say fundamentalist), and definitely those that are wrapped up in fanatical ideologies (the type where whole groups of beings/cultures are the enemy and need to be wiped out). What is good or bad - how do we decide? what are the consequences of those decisions? The overall series is a treasure for artists/creatives/seekers (and Humanities professors like me :) What comes to your mind when you think of magic - what happens when we actual explore a concept and think about the multiple ways it is framed?]
---. "We’re Together In Dreams: Dreaming and Western Esotericism." The Secret History of Western Esotericism #7 (October 4, 2017) ["In approaching the western esoteric traditions, we are confronted by visions, magic, esoteric interpretations, and fantastical otherworldly journeys. Luckily, everyone on earth has experience with all of these strange phenomena, because everyone dreams. In this episode we formulate some preliminary musings on the importance of dreams for western esotericism, and discuss some of the theories about dreams and their significance that we find in the earliest texts of the western tradition. Ranging from lying gods in the Homeric corpus to dæmonic hypnagogic possession in the late antique Platonist writer Iamblichus, this episode sets the stage for things to come."]"Phil Ford and J.F. Martel: Weird Studies/Art/Culture/Esotericism." Dialogic Cinephilia (Online Archive)
Singh, Manvir. "The Shaman, The Witch, and the Folktale." Many Minds (July 15, 2020) ["Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Manvir Singh. Manvir recently finished his PhD in Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and will soon begin a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. Manvir studies human culture. In particular, he focuses on certain cultural practices and products that spring up over and over again across the world’s societies—often in strikingly similar form. To explain these similarities, Manvir appeals to the human mind. He argues that our universal mental machinery plays a powerful role in molding our cultural traditions and products. We start by diving deep into the topic of shamanism. We talk about why humans around the world have long put their trust in shamans—and why they still do today. We discuss why it is that, to secure that trust, shamans everywhere enter trance states, deny themselves worldly comforts, and undergo harrowing initiation rituals. We then move beyond shamanism. We talk about why we believe in witches and why we like stories about orphans and other sympathetic characters. We consider why people the world over know a lullaby when they hear one. Part of what I admire about Manvir’s work is his balanced interest in both universal cultural patterns and fine-grained particulars. He’s interested in the forest, definitely, but also in the trees. And, trust me, there are a lot of fascinating trees here."]
Storm, Jason Josephson. "On the Myth of Disenchantment." The Secret History of Western Esotericism (February 15, 2023) ["In a brilliant and wide-ranging exploration of the history of very up-to-date, very relevant ideas, we discuss the idea of ‘disenchantment’ with Jason Josephson Storm. This idea (perhaps best known from the iconic work of Max Weber, but actually not really what Weber said and not really just from Weber anyway) is that in the old days people believed in magic and spirits, but nowadays we are ‘disenchanted’, i.e. beyond all that (fill in the blank with ‘superstitious, ‘unscientific’, ‘woo-woo’, etc.) nonsense. One of the questions Storm asks is, ‘Who are “we”, exactly?’ The implicit colonialist mindsets latent within these constructions of enchantment and disenchantment begin to percolate up into plain view. Another question he asks is, ‘Given that there is a “we” in question, is it really true that we are beyond all that nonsense?’ It turns out, no, it isn’t, or not for a sizeable majority of “us” at any rate. A fascinating interview which we highly recommend, and which has a lot to tell the field of western esotericism studies about what it is that we are doing, exactly."]
Quote file:
"Sirat, a film by the Spanish film director Oliver Laxe, opens in the monumental setting of a rave in the Sahara, where a father and son are searching for a missing daughter. As the two make their way from party to party, news of a brewing World War-style conflict animates the background. (In Islamic scripture, “sirat” refers to a bridge that connects Paradise and Hell, and one gets a dose of each here.) Neither road film nor parable, Laxe’s film unfolds through encounters, sound, and landscape, denying narrative certainty and sitting instead with loss, belief, and endurance. As a work of art, Sirat becomes its own cosmology, loosening the grip of the rational world. Refusing the traditional arc of story, it is at once mystical and political, intimate and cosmic – offering a new vocabulary of being. Sirat gives permission for softness and strangeness. It makes me feel less existentially alone." — Sumayya Vally
"Monstrosity, for me, is always positive. It's about debunking all the normative ways of society and social life. (1)" - Julia Decournau (2021) [quoted in Creed]
"This is the mystery we thrust ourselves into: A single neuron is not conscious of its existence. A network of billions of unconscious single neurons is. These monads living in a world without perception become a being that perceives, thinks, and acts. Consciousness lies not in neurons, but in a sophisticated pattern of connectivity (125)." - Dr. Arnkatla Minervudottr-Chan in Nayler, Ray. The Mountain in the Sea. Picador, 2022.
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