Episode 11: Art is a Haunting Spirit

Weird Studies

M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" is one of the most fascinating, and most chilling, examples of the classic ghost story. In this episode, Phil and JF discover what this tale of haunted images and buried secrets tells us about the reality of ideas, the singularity of events, the virtual power of the symbol, and the enduring magic of the art object in the age of mechanical reproduction.

To accompany this episode, Phil recorded a full reading of the story. Listen to it here.

REFERENCES

M.R. James, "The Mezzotint"
Robert Aickman, English author of "strange stories"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Oval Portrait"
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Marshall McLuhan, The Book of Probes
Clement Greenberg, American art critic
J.F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice
Marcel Duchamps, Fountain
Henri Bergson, Laughter
John Cage, American composer
David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: The Return
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter
Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?
Stanley Kubrick, [The Shining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining(film))_
Ferruccio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music
David Lynch on why you shouldn't watch films on your phone
Nelson Goodman, American philosopher
Pablo Picasso, Guernica
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings
Phil Ford, "No One Understands You"