THE BEAUTY AND THE HORROR
AN EDUCATION IN DREADFUL WONDER
With Phil Ford and J.F. Martel, hosts of the Weird Studies Podcast
Five weeks of lectures and group discussions hosted on Zoom
June 20th to July 21st, 2024
“You shall die. You may see. The beauty and the horror.” –– Lady Jessica to her son Paul, Dune 2 (2024)
In Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, J.F. Martel wrote that there is a “radical beauty” that attains the most intense expression precisely when it mixes in a bit of death and impermanence. “If the music of Bach is more moving than elevator Muzak even though both follow the same basic principles, it is because Bach gave harmony a dizzyingly precarious existence. He made it teeter perpetually on the brink of dissolution. Bach knew that pleasant melodies weren’t enough to make art; for real beauty to emerge, the unthinkable had to be given its due.”
Think of runway models whose comeliness carries a hint of strangeness –– angelic faces out of whose depths, in a certain light, from a certain angle, there might gleam something of the mantis or the reptile. Or think of Ralph Ellison’s conceit of “Optic White,” a paint whose pristine whiteness is attained with a single drop of black. Which might put you in mind of the Yin-Yang symbol, where dark Yin and light Yang each have a drop of its opposite and complement. These primordial forces of Yin and Yang are the archetypes of horror and beauty, which likewise twine around one another endlessly. At any moment, a turning crystal of spacetime might show us the beautiful reversing into the horrific, and the horrific into the beautiful. “For beauty,” wrote the poet Rainer Maria Rilke,
is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure, and while we stand in wonder it coolly disdains to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying.
What madness is this?
A New Course from the Hosts of Weird Studies
THE BEAUTY AND THE HORROR will chase its motions through several of Phil and J.F.’s favorite artworks: music, poetry, film, fiction, comics, philosophy (hey, philosophy is art too), and more. In each session, their task will be to locate the two aesthetic polarities and triangulate that point where they conjoin. It’s going to be an eclectic class: wide-ranging, unpredictable, experimental, and hopefully, unforgettable.
Each week, there will be two 90-minute events: Lecture Hall and Office Hours.
In Lecture Hall, J.F. and Phil will each choose an artwork and do a bit of show-and-tell, followed by a dueling-banjos conversation of the kind Weird Studies listeners know well. During this time, students will write in the Zoom chat, and their questions and comments will be incorporated into the flow of Lecture Hall. In Office Hours, students will converse with the hosts and one another, building on the previous Lecture Hall session and on their own independent studies, whatever they may be.
For fans of Weird Studies, THE BEAUTY AND THE HORROR will be an opportunity to see how some very strange sausage is made. It will be like stepping through the looking glass and entering the podcast. This is a chance to get involved, interject, and participate in the building of ideas with the hosts.
For artists and lovers of art, this is an opportunity to read widely and think deeply about the artwork’s power to move, astonish, and unsettle us.
For Phil and J.F., this will be an opportunity to take risks, workshop new concepts, interact with listeners — and most importantly, learn from them.
Schedule
The course begins on June 20th and ends on July 21st. All meetings will take place over Zoom via the Weirdosphere learning platform.
- Lecture Hall sessions will take place on Thursdays at 5 pm PDT / 8 pm EDT. The meetings will be recorded to allow students in more distant time zones to attend asynchronously.
- Office Hours sessions will take place on Sundays at 12 pm PDT / 3 pm EDT. This timeslot is chosen to allow students from as many time zones as possible to attend live. These sessions will also be recorded.
All of the recorded sessions will remain available to registered students after the course is over.
Homework
From week to week, J.F. and Phil may assign texts, films, and pieces of music in view of upcoming discussions. Whenever possible, works will be made available on the course platform. For copyright reasons, students may need to purchase access to certain works, such as films, on their own.
Why Take this Course?
Students will get to:
- Meet J.F. and Phil and participate directly in their discussions via chat and live meetings. (If you’ve ever wished that you were sitting in the studio with the hosts while they discussed the finer points of a topic you’re passionate about, this is your chance.)
- Walk the metaphysical borderlands where our categories fail to capture the fullness of aesthetic experience.
- Explore ten singular artworks, any of which might have made for a memorable episode of Weird Studies.
- Gain permanent access to recordings of the lectures and discussions.
- Get to post, share, discuss, and exchange direct messages with the instructors and other students on the Weirdosphere platform.
- Become full-fledged members of a new online learning community, with a permanent discount on all future Weirdosphere classes by Phil Ford, J.F. Martel, and other thinkers of things strange and astonishing.
Cost
Registration is $160.
If you are a paid member of the Weird Studies Patreon community, you are eligible for a discount. Please use the registration link provided on Patreon to get this benefit.
By enrolling in The Beauty and the Horror, you will automatically become a member of the Weirdosphere learning community and get a discount on all future offerings on the platform.
If your circumstances are such that paying full price is an obstacle, please write us at [email protected] to arrange a reduced rate.
