Opening lecture for Weird Fiction course. Review of syllabus and basic assignments. Traces roots of Weird Fiction in the Gothic and in late 19th-century Decadence.
Thank you for posting this! Im not a student just a fan of surrealist and weird fiction. Especially when its horror. So im glad such amazing info is just out here for free! ❤️
I remember year ago finding these break downs of Weird fic which I wasn't sure if I could divorce it from being some extreme weirdo sadist stuff but with sprinkle of interesting ideas. The delivery of these concepts is masterful. The guy who gave these lectures is actually a legend. Deserves to be in a completely different class in terms of viewership and reception. And I've later fully connected the deep artistic purity which is in the veins some of the work in this genre, and why it is more rich than people acknowledge or even writers express. Which is a small part of why these lectures are so impressive to me.
Great lecture! Fascinating to hear about the art that preceded and inspired weird fiction. The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher is a great book that also explores this topic, but more from the perspective of trying to define what makes something "weird". Thomas Ligotti also has written a lot about this.
I feel that impenetrable prose gives linguistic existence to ideas that can't be comprehended. It strives and SUGGESTS, and that is all that CAN be done when faced with the unknowable.
I have read about the pulp mags & August Derleth in particular. It’s interesting you teach a course where a lot of the writing was done because the authors were trying to fill up the next magazine issue, or simply trying to make enough money to eat. :) But it’s definitely a 20th century literary happening. I DO quibble with the dates, I always thought the aftermath of two absolutely hideous world wars had something to do with this genre. If we can be this bad, what must it be like behind the veil? I have read Lovecraft. Scientists are just on the verge of talking about what his work sounds like, plasma physics, & by extension, plasma beings. Freaks you right out when you think about it.
Thanks for uploading these lectures. I'm about to begin postgrad analysing Pathologic II and this series has helped me situate it in the weird, alongside theatre peeps like Artaud and more recent philosophies of the posthuman.
Wouldn't Ligotti fit within a lot of the "weird" 's parameters? . I'm not sure "purple prose" can be applied very solidly to weird fiction, at least without careful examination of just what is being talked about at the specific moment. Sometimes the "purpleness" IS the weird itself: they are on a moebius strip, an inexplicable continuum. A few episodes of The Twilight Zone seem to fit into this weird fiction universe: IT'S A GOOD LIFE, and AND WHEN THE SKY OPENED (I think that's the title)...both certainly conveyed the feelings of helplessness of their characters in the face of inexplicable forces beyond man's comprehension and control.
Maybe another name for "weird fiction" is "quantum fiction", because its core seems to reside right there where comprehension is not a graspable solid, even when it seems like it might be.
Weird fiction gives up on Christianity. There are two great Christian commandments: love God and love one another. Is that the way to fight the evil after all? When evil takes over, is it because of an absence of love? An absence of Hope? There is hopelessness in WF. Evil is with us and it looks like a never-ending fight. Christ made it sound easy: Get thee behind me Satan. A conscious decision has to be made to keep evil at bay. But this has become a different discussion for another day.
Thanks for the video. I like the subject matter and it’s educational. However, taste in fiction is subjective. Aesthetic claims cannot be proven. There’s no such thing as “an objectively terrible movie”. It’s a matter of opinion, not provable fact.
There are rules for art. Yes, there are movies everybody knows sucks, because there is an artistry to making them. And paintings, sculptures and everything else. Some art is only good enough to be called an expression of the artist. Some can’t be called art at all, it’s just crap. All the opposite of true art, or a masterpiece. One needs to learn discernment to be able to tell the difference.
You TEACH THIS???? Whoa... NO You Don't have any idea of what you are talking about. I Watched your Lovecraft one and was left gobsmacked. Do you think you know more than people that have devoted their lives to the subjet. You host a REALLY fake course and i wish you well in your endeavor to spin your own upon well documented subjects.
