Weirdosphere

J. F. Martel

J. F. Martel

J.F. Martel is a Canadian author, filmmaker, lecturer, and cultural critic known for his work on the arts, philosophy, and the uncanny. With a background in film production and an interest in metaphysics, Martel explores the intersections of creativity and the ineffable, challenging conventional boundaries of understanding. He is best known for his book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, which argues for the intrinsic value of art beyond commodification and utilitarianism. Martel’s writings often appear in various publications, where he discusses the spiritual and existential dimensions of culture. As a filmmaker, he has directed several documentaries and short films. Through his work, Martel invites audiences to reconsider their perceptions of reality and embrace the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of the workaday world. He co-hosts the Weird Studies podcast with the music historian Phil Ford.

https://www.reclaimingart.com/

JM103: A Machine for Making Gods

Destiny and Mystery in the Philosophy of Henri Bergson

with J. F. Martel

JM103: A Machine for Making Gods is more than an introduction to the philosophy of Henri Bergson. It is an invitation to think with one of the truly original minds of the last century about the nature of time, life, memory, reality, and dream. More than perhaps any other philosophy, Bergson’s offers a sharp tool for cutting through the confusion, shallow “takes,” and outright illusions that bombard us today.

This course starts September 18.

WS102: On Walking

Foot Travel as a Magical & Aesthetic Practice

with J. F. Martel and Phil Ford

WS101: On Walking invites participants to explore walking as metaphor, spiritual practice, and embodied inquiry. As the course is drawn from years’ worth of Weird Studies episodes (at least all the way back to 2019’s “Green Mountains Are Always Walking”), it’s a journey Weird Studies listeners won’t want to miss.

This course concluded in August 2025 and is now self-paced.

EV002: What Is ‘Idiology’?

Art and Politics in the 21st Century.

with J. F. Martel

In this presentation, J.F. examines how Reclaiming Art’s central ideas intersect with the political landscape of the 21st century. He argues that art—like the Alps—is fundamentally apolitical, yet it exerts profound political effects. The title’s neologism, “idiology,” refers to the figure of the idiot in Dostoevsky’s sense: a person who sees through ideology into the Real.

This event concluded on May 22, 2025.

JM102: It’s All Real

An Inquiry Into the Reality of the Supernatural

with J. F. Martel

JM102: It’s All Real gives serious philosophical thought to supernatural beings and otherworldly phenomena, by examining real-world encounters, exploring alternate metaphysical models better aligned with human experience, and engaging the conditions of the possible and the outer limits of reality. By the end, we may find ourselves in a new world inhabited by real, persistent entities.

This course concluded in March 2025 and is now self-paced.

JM101: Whirl Without End

Fairy Tales and the Weird

with J. F. Martel

JM101: Whirl Without End explores the mystery of fairy tales, approaching them as the great, anonymous artworks that they are. The course covers their origins, structures, and functions, examining their power to generate and subvert meaning and order and contrasts the sanitized versions of fairy tales popularized by Disney with the darker, more complex tales recorded by folklorists like the Brothers Grimm. JM101 uncovers how fairy tales, often as uncanny and terrifying as any modern horror film, reveal profound truths about the human person, morality, and the cosmos.

This course concluded in October 2024 and is now self-paced.

WS101: The Beauty and the Horror

An Education in Dreadful Wonder

with J. F. Martel and Phil Ford

In five joint lectures, Phil and JF cover Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, Wilde’s Salomé, Montaigne’s “On a Monster Child”, Lyotard’s “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?”, Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Strauss’s Salome, Oates’s “On Boxing”, Ballard’s Crash, Hickey’s “Formalism”, and Martel’s “Stay with Mystery: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Melancholia, and the Truth of Extinction.” The throughline is an education in dreadful wonder.

This course concluded in July 2024 and is now self-paced.