Episode 118: The Unseen and the Unnamed, with Meredith Michael

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael to discuss two strange and unsettling short stories: J.G. Ballard's "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" (1964) and Ursula K. Le Guin's "She Unnames Them" (1985). Their plan was to talk about three stories, but they never got to Phil's pick, which will be the focus of episode 119. The reason is that Le Guin and Ballard's stories share surprising resonances that merited close discussion. From opposite perspectives, both tales put words to a region of reality that resists discursive description, a borderland where that which is named reveals its unnamed facet, and that which must remain unseen reveals itself to the inner eye.

Support us on Patreon

Find us on Discord

Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau!

Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.)

Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop

Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack

REFERENCES

J. G. Ballard, “The Giaconda of the Twilight Noon,” from The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard

Ursula K. Le Guin, "She Unnames Them," from The Real and the Uneal

Alfred Hitchcock (dir.), The Birds

Jung's concept of the collective unconscious

Walter Pater, The Renaissance

Ursula K. Le Guin, “She Unnames Them” in The Real and the Unreal

Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution

M. C .Richards, Centering

Weird Studies, Episode 35 on Centering

Weird Studies, Episode 81 on The Course of the Heart

Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress

Linguistically deprived children

Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's thoughts on on imagination and fancy can be found in Biographia Literaria Special Guest: Meredith Michael.