Episode 211 – You've Always Been the Caretaker: On Kubrick's 'The Shining'

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Arts, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining. That they are doing this eight years after starting the podcast is weird in itself, so fundamental is Kubrick's "chamber epic" to the modern weird in general, and the hosts' specific interests in particular. Well, as the Overlook Hotel's former caretaker Delbert Grady might put it, consider the situation corrrrected. Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in JF's upcoming course on Deleuzian philosophy, starting May 7 2026. Support Weird Studies on Patreon Interstitial Music: "Corridors" from Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies Volume 2. REFERENCES Stanley Kubrick, The Shining Jan Harlan, A Life in Pictures Stanely Kubruck, Killer’s Kiss Alberto Giacometti, “The Palace at 4am” Gilles Deleuze, What is Philosophy? Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism” Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you believe fairies exist?
0:07.0	Each day more people are coming forward with stories of encountering otherworldly beings.
0:15.0	Join me, Joe Hickey Hall, on the Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast,
0:20.0	as we hear from people who are ready to share
0:23.5	their experiences.
0:25.2	Like a tree stop walking and he walked with this weird gait.
0:30.3	It had to take a double take because in front of me were two elf-like goblin-y things.
0:37.4	So the red light was gone and now this slack shape is forming.
0:43.0	They then stopped, look around at us, chuckled and then just vanished in front of our eyes.
0:48.9	Whether you're already a believer or full of intrigue, come, open-minded and open-hearted, and make your own mind up.
0:59.3	The Modern Fairy Sightings podcast on Spectar Vision Radio.
1:20.2	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
1:25.5	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdstudies.com. Welcome to Weird Studies. This is Phil.
1:52.9	This week, J.F. and I are talking about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, a film so central to the Weird Studies project that I had to look it up on the
2:02.0	internet to see if we had done an episode on it yet. I could have sworn we had. Kubrick is a big
2:08.0	figure for us, and we've done episodes on 2001, A Space Odyssey, and eyes wide shut. But while
2:15.2	we've mentioned The Shining many times in passing, the only time we talked much
2:19.7	about the film was all the way back in episode 12 when we discussed the weird documentaries of Rodney
2:25.4	Asher, particularly his first feature, Room 237. Room 237 is less about The Shining than its
2:33.3	infinite interpretability, and the many theories
2:36.5	its dedicated students have fashioned to account for it.
2:40.4	Theories that can be insightful, bonkers, or sometimes both.
	...

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