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JM105: The Awful Truth

The Real Revealed in the Art of Horror

With J.F. Martel

Co-host of Weird Studies and author of Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice

Starts September 17, 2026

Course Description

In this six-week course, JF Martel will explore the horror genre in search of what it can reveal to us about the nature of truth. Truth, it should be said, is a fraught word today, defanged in some quarters, weaponized in others. How did we come to this "post-truth" age? A close reading of horror suggests that it has less to do with relativism or cynicism than it does with a fear of certain truths we already know.

Works of horror fiction and cinema often hinge on the gradual revelation of a terrible truth, something the protagonists begin by doubting, only to be forced to reckon with it as the story unfolds. On the surface, this truth may seem to be nothing more than the ghost, vampire, or demon at the centre of the narrative. But in the most memorable instances, the monster merely embodies a deeper truth, that of an entire world which, through the monster, replaces the illusory world the characters have so far inhabited. In accepting the truth, the characters realize, paradoxically, that they are living in a horror story. To survive, they must "become fictitious" themselves, submitting to a total inversion of fact and make-believe, reason and superstition.

But this course is more than an exercise in literary and film criticism. Horror is a genre that belongs fully to our secular age, and in it the problem of the modern is perhaps most fully articulated. Why does a culture that has stopped believing in spirits insist on paying to be frightened by them, and why does that fright, at some level, feel more like being reminded of something than being told something new? Is the secular, disenchanted self we take for granted really a neutral baseline, or is it a construction, built for purpose? Is horror an ongoing rehearsal for the toppling of this edifice?

Course sessions will pair primary horror texts and films—everything from The King in Yellow and Nosferatu to Stephen King and John Carpenter—with a range of philosophical, psychoanalytic, sociological, and comparative-religious material, including work by Julia Kristeva, Martin Heidegger, Tzvetan Todorov, Octave Mannoni, Sigmund Freud, Max Picard, Mircea Eliade, George Steiner, Charles Taylor, and Victoria Nelson.

Format

The course consists of six weekly lectures, each 90 minutes long, and as many “office hours” sessions, where students can ask J.F. questions and contribute their own ideas to the evolving discussion. The course includes a dedicated feed where the instructor and students can post thoughts, share links, and engage in discussion between Zoom sessions.

Schedule

The course begins on Thursday, September 17, 2026, and ends with a final group discussion on Saturday, October 24. All meetings take place over Zoom via the Weirdosphere learning platform.

Lecture Hall sessions will take place on Thursdays, at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET. These meetings are recorded to allow students in more distant time zones to attend asynchronously.

Office Hours sessions will be held as follows:

• Sundays on September 20, 27, Oct 4, 18, at 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET.

• Saturdays on October 10, 24, at 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET.

This time slot is chosen to allow students from as many time zones as possible to attend live. Like the lectures, these sessions will be recorded. All recorded sessions will remain available to registered students after the course is over, in video and audio format.

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ED102: Do Androids Dream of Reading Philip K. Dick?

Reading PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" as prophecy

With Erik Davis

Author, lecturer

Starts October 1, 2026

Erik Davis has been thinking and writing about the visionary Californian science fiction writer Philip K. Dick since he wrote about PKD for his Yale thesis in 1988. In his ED101 course, Davis led students through a prophetic reading of PKD’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. With ED102, Davis returns to Weirdosphere with a series of lectures on PKD’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, perhaps best known as the novel that formed the basis for the Ridley Scott cult film Blade Runner.

Erik’s first lecture will present Dick’s work and life in the late 1960s and lay out some of the major themes of the novel, as well as a more general discussion on “prophetic reading.” Subsequent weeks will combine close readings of the novel with focused discussions sessions. Weekly readings will consist of roughly 60-page chunks, plus optional secondary texts.

We will explore a number of themes found in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, one of Dick’s most explicitly ethical novels. We will look at how Dick presents the vexed human relationship to both animals and humanoid machines; the pharmacological control of personality and emotion; the mechanization of empathy; the ontology of entropy; and the transformations of the Christ figure in an age of immersive “social” media. We will be reading the novel not so much as fiction or science fiction but as a prophetic lens on today’s polycrisis, aspects of which resonate uncannily with Dick’s philosophical and visionary concerns.

Format

The course consists of five lectures from Davis, previously recorded at The Berkeley Alembic, and two live Q&A sessions with Davis, held over Zoom via the Weirdosphere learning platform.

Participants will read their own copies of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in digestible chunks and listen to the lectures associated with those chapters. Then, on Sundays Oct 11 and Oct 25, participants will interact in live Q&As with Davis to discuss the themes and prophetic nature of Dick’s novel. Participants are also encouraged to ask questions and contribute their own ideas to an evolving discussion in a course forum. A recording of each Q&A will be made available after the Zoom call and will be available in the course space for all registrants.

Schedule

Beginning on Oct 1, pre-recorded lectures will be made available for self-paced learning, along with a suggested reading schedule, in advance of two live discussions with Davis over Zoom.

Live Q&As will be held as follows:

• Sunday, Oct 11, 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET
• Sunday, Oct 25, 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET

The live discussions will be recorded and made available to registrants.

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On the very notion of a Weirdosphere

At a certain point, Phil Ford and J.F. Martel started to realize they weren't just two guys with a podcast (Weird Studies), but members of a community of thinkers, artists, and writers all drawn to the same chaotic, terrible, beautiful zone — the Weird. This community could be called the intellectual sphere of the weird, or, to coin a term, the intellectual Weirdosphere. 

But how could such an imaginal entity manifest on the material plane, they asked? What institution could serve as a makeshift home to the Weird? Where would J.F., Phil, and their friends be able to establish the conversations they wanted to have? 

This site to which fate has steered you—our community on Mighty Networks at Weirdosphere.mn.co—is home to all the conversations we ever wanted to have with our colleagues. And you are our colleague, even if we haven't yet met. Welcome to Weirdosphere.