Dialogic Cinephilia - July 17, 2020

Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick." Weird Studies #9 (April 11, 2018)

---. "Philip K. Dick: Adrift in the Universe." Weird Studies #10 (April 18, 2018) ["In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel universes. It became clear in the course of the lecture that Dick didn't intend this to be a talk about science fiction, but about real life - indeed, about his life. In this episode, Phil and JF seriously consider the speculations which, depending on whom you ask, make PKD either a genius or a madman. This distinction may not matter in the end. As Dick himself wrote in his 8,000-page Exegesis: "The madman speaks the moral of the piece.""]

Lenz, Lyz. "Sorry Not Sorry." On the Media (July 15, 2020) ["Fox Primetime host Tucker Carlson has already had quite the July. On the plus side, the latest ratings for his show have made him officially the most watched cable news host. On the other side of the ledger, advertisers are fleeing his show on the grounds of not wishing to be associated with lies and hate speech. Oh, also, his head writer Blake Neff, was forced out after his explicitly racist and misogynist social media posts were unmasked online. And now Tucker is off the show for two weeks, as he put it “on a long-planned vacation.” "]

Piketty, Thomas. Capital and Ideology. trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Harvard University Press, 2020. ["Thomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system. Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity. Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it." This is the Harvard University Press book page, it has links to app. 50 interviews and features on the author & the book.]




Smith, Orla. "TIFF interview: Alice Winocour on her outstanding space drama Proxima." Seventh Row (September 17, 2019)

Thompson, Scott. "Occult Features of Anarchism by Erica Lagalisse: A Review." Gods and Radicals Press (December 12, 2018)

Unsell, Tyler, et al. "The Babadook and Grief." Horror Pod Class #3 (February 2, 2018)

Wang, Nanfu. "On One Child Nation." Film at Lincoln Center Podcast #239 (August 2019) ["The film, directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, powerfully and personally explores China’s One Child Policy, which made it illegal in most circumstances for couples to have more than one child. The film screened at Human Rights Watch Film Festival, where co-director Nanfu Wang joined Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch and Minky Worden, Director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch."]

Winocour, Alice. "Lockdown Film School 8: Masterclass with Alice Winocour on directing." Seventh Row (June 25, 2020) ["In this session of Lockdown Film School, we talk to writer-director Alice Winocour about her features Augustine, Disorder, and Proxima in this directing masterclass."]