Very Bad Wizards
a philosopher and a psychologist ponder human morality
We found 3 episodes of Very Bad Wizards with the tag “short story”.
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Episode 219: Multiplied by Mirrors
August 17th, 2021 | 1 hr 45 mins
borges, borges and i, eating, emma zuni, sex, short story, social psychology
It’s a Borges bonanza! David and Tamler dive into two stories: “Emma Zunz” and “Borges and I.” The first seems like a straightforward daughter revenge story (Tamler’s favorite genre), but Borges being Borges there are layers of doubt and fuzziness about what exactly is going on. “Borges and I” may be less than a page, but it has us questioning our identity, the relationship between private and public selves, and what happens to when you release a work out into the world.
Plus, back to social psychology. Are you a picky eater? Then people think you suck at sex. We are not sure who is recording this podcast.
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Episode 206: Angel Chasing (Ted Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God")
February 9th, 2021 | 1 hr 37 mins
consciousness, hell is the absence of god, religion, short story, ted chiang, the hard problem
David and Tamler return to the TCU (Ted Chiang Universe) to talk about his short story “Hell is the Absence of God." How would we behave if we had unequivocal proof of God, heaven, hell, and angels? Would that answer our questions about meaning and purpose and justice? Or would those same questions reappear in a different guise? Plus, the hard problem of breakfast, Jewish Space Lasers, and more…
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Episode 192: Postmodern Wet Dreams (Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote")
July 7th, 2020 | 1 hr 36 mins
borges, my little pony, nazis, postmodernism, short story
David and Tamler dive into “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a very funny Borges story that also raises deep questions about authorship, reading, and interpretation. What would it mean for the same text to be written by two different authors more than three hundred years apart? Is this story the post-modernist manifesto that literary critics like Roland Barthes believed it to be? Or is the narrator in the story just a delusional sycophant, a victim of Menard’s practical joke – and by extension, a practical joke by Borges on the post-modernist movement to come? Plus, My Little Pony fans finally confront their Nazi problem.