Episode 101: Our Fear of the Dark: On Tanizaki's 'In Praise of Shadows'

In modern physics as in Western theology, darkness and shadows have a purely negative existence. They are merely the absence of light. In mythology and art, however, light and darkness are enjoy a kind of Manichaean equality. Each exists in its own right and lays claim to one half of the Real. In this episode, JF and Phil delve into the luxuriant gloom of the Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanazaki's classic meditation on the half-forgotten virtues of the dark.

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REFERENCES

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
Chiaroscuro, Renaissance art style
John Carpenter (dir.), Escape from L.A.
Weird Studies, Episode 13 on Heraclitus
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Yasujiro Ozu (dir.), Late Spring
Wabi Sabi, Japanese idea
John Carpenter (dir.), Escape from NY
Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep
Eric Voegelin, German-American philosopher