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    Episode 72: Morning of the Mutants: On the Castrati

    en-usApril 29, 2020
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    About this Episode

    For over two centuries in early modern Italy, boys were selected for their singing talent castrated before the onset of puberty. The goal was to preserve the qualities of their voice even as they grew into manhood. The procedure resulted in other physiological changes which, combined with an unnaturally high voice, made the castrati the most prodigious singers on the continent. As Martha Feldman shows in her book The Castrato, a masterpiece of cultural history, the castrated singer was such a singular figure that he invited comparisons with angels, animals, and kings, attracting adoration and ridicule in equal measures. The castrato was a true liminal being, and as JF and Phil discover in this episode of Weird Studies, an unlikely herald of the present age. REFERENCES Martha Feldman, The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292444/the-castrato) Stanley Kubrick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick), American filmmaker Alessandro Moreschi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Moreschi), the last castrato, singing "Ave Maria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws)" Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm) X-Men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Old_Man_with_Enormous_Wings)" Thomas Ligotti, "Mrs Ligotti's Angel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1iH6EIMAA)", read by horror writer Jon Padgett (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7189686.Jon_Padgett) Weird Studies, Episode 48: Thomas Ligotti's Angel (https://www.weirdstudies.com/46) Thomas Aquinas, [Summa Theologica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummaTheologica)_ Genesis P-Orridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_P-Orridge), American musician and occultist

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    Episode 156: The Only Possible End: On Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History'

    Episode 156: The Only Possible End: On Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History'
    There are works of weird fiction that dispense their strangeness so subtly that many readers never pick up on it, books that allow themselves to be pass for mundane, the better to haunt us after we put them down. Donna Tartt's debut novel The Secret History, published in 1992, is such a work. On the surface, it is a brilliant, yet completely naturalistic, telling of the lead-up and aftermath of a murder. But The Secret History is also a work of the depths, and readers who go in seeking the Weird will find it lurking on every page. More than a masterpiece of psychological exploration, it is a story about the resurgence of the old god Dionysus, and a chronicle of fate; fate conceived, in the manner of the Ancient Greeks, as a cosmic force. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies). Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2), on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Donna Tartt, The Secret History (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781400031702) Robertson Davies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Davies), Canadian novelist Weird Studies, Episode 98 on Exotica (https://www.weirdstudies.com/98) M. R. James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James), English author Weird Studies, Episode 3 on “The White People” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3) E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781773239187) Jean Cocteau, La Machine Infernale (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9782253009160) John Crowley, Little, Big (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780061120053) Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Outrageous Okana” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708816/) Weird Studies, Episode 110 on “The Glass Bead Game” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/110) Gabriel Faure, Nocturne No. 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8vrmePFUdg) Pierre-André Boutang, L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyXMmx2Ofgs) Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780316055444)