Literary Nomads

Literary Nomads

Join me, Steve Chisnell, as we find and lose meaning across modern and classic tales, through ancient and distant verse, atop everything in our many cultures which might be read. For teachers, students, and lovers of reading, we will discover new paths to understanding!

Episodes

Utopia’s Spare Parts: Star Trek & Ishiguro

March 21, 2026 • 49 mins
The “Hideous Bargain” moves from metaphor to the operating table. In this episode, we let loose the bonds of metaphor in Le Guin’s “Omelas” and meet the visceral reality of clinical labor. We examine how the “Sanitization of Language” allows societies—from the United Federation of Planets to modern biotechnology markets—to rebrand human suffering as a […]
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The Architecture of the Dungeon: Toni Morrison and the 13th Amendment

March 1, 2026 • 42 mins
The Omelas basement has a physical address in America: the prison-industrial complex.  This week, we use the lens of Toni Morrison’s literary criticism to interrogate the 13th Amendment and the ‘Hideous Bargain” of mass incarceration. If the basement is built into our laws, can we ever truly ‘walk away’? We analyze Toni Morrison’s book Playing […]
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Wandering Stars: Tommy Orange and the Sovereign Center

February 21, 2026 • 30 mins
What happens to the story when the ‘object’ of our sympathy looks back and refuses the role we’ve written for them? The allegory of the ‘Suffering Child’ is a powerful challenge, but it creates its own blind spots: it can turn a living history into a static prop. This week, we use Tommy Orange’s Wandering […]
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The Bureaucracy of Erasure: Erdrich’s The Night Watchman

February 13, 2026 • 51 mins
Your Interpretation is Colonial. When we turn Zen into a pop-culture vibe or a totem pole into a corporate metaphor, we aren't learning; we're committing interpretative violence.
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Words from Nigeria 3 – Emezi’s Pet & Hunters for Truth

January 30, 2026 • 37 mins
Akwaeke Emezi demonstrates how Nigeria’s contemporary writers turn our conceptual realities around. They offer a YA novel that doesn’t condescend, but more, one which shows that we should not “walk away” from Omelas, but perhaps “Stay and Hunt.” This is also the final of three episodes which offers a broader look at the history and […]
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Words from Nigeria Pt 2: Soyinka’s Tiger & Brother Jero

January 23, 2026 • 40 mins
Why have so few read Soyinka? And can we find hope through his cynical dramas? I admit I am a victim of the myth-making around me which has made Soyinka and other African writers largely invisible. Let’s see why. Episode 6.24 – Words from Nigeria Pt 2: Soyinka’s Tiger & Brother Jero African writers named […]
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Words from Nigeria Pt 1: Adichie and the Literary Manifesto

January 16, 2026 • 38 mins
  What sort of literature is this, anyway? Today we introduce some approaches to Nigerian literature, offer a bevy of African writers, and explore how one of Nigeria’s most powerful authors can write her own modest letter to humanity. Also, we learn about hostile architecture from one of our listeners. Episode 6.23 – Words from […]
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Cassandra: Uncertain Steps

January 9, 2026 • 36 mins
  And what if nobody listens? Yes, entering our calls for justice into public space carries no small amount of anxiety. And the poster-child for being unheard, the Trojan princess and priestess Cassandra, may–if we read our mythology carefully–provide us some clues to our purpose and goals in writing as anti-epic heroes, wielding language as […]
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Writing Back: Letters to Humanity

December 26, 2025 • 38 mins
  26 Dec 2025 Episode 6.21 – Writing Back: Letters to Humanity A different sort of New Year Resolution, moving us from personal improvement to public advocacy! Let’s write an essay of address, framing our passions into a perspective that would make Le Guin proud! Texts from this episode: Nazim Hikmet: Letters to Taranta-Babu, 1935 […]
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The Great Societies: Lowry’s “The Giver”

December 19, 2025 • 38 mins
  19 Dec 2025 Episode 6.20 – The Great Societies: Lowry’s The Giver Another thorny utopia, Lowry’s Community practices a different kind of strategy to the Hideous Bargain: ethical evasion, a too tempting strategy for all of us. Political? Yes. But also a YA fantasy vision of what some of the latest writers and thinkers […]
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The Great Societies, Pt 2: Metropolis & The Ways of Meaning

December 12, 2025 • 50 mins
  12 Dec 2025 Episode 6.19 – The Great Societies, Pt 2: Metropolis & The Ways of Meaning We finish our discussion of the silent film Metropolis and answer our question of art and politics by examining the text, context, and reader meaning-making. Discussed in the episode: A definition of Context: with / accompanying / […]
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Is All Art Political? The Great Societies, Pt. 1: Metropolis

December 5, 2025 • 54 mins
It seems everything is politics these days. But at least can't we keep art pure? You know, art for art's sake? I offer my thoughts on the topic while we examine the classic silent film, Metropolis (1927).
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True Horror: Le Guin, Poe, Cavarero, Bataille, and Arendt

November 28, 2025 • 52 mins
We finish our side trail on the implications of Poe's horror by stepping more deeply into our own capacity to violence, reaching finally to Le Guin's own direction: look to our modern political scene and the impulse to annihilation.
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Poe: Horror, Pathology, and the Necessity of Care

November 21, 2025 • 51 mins
We say Poe has influence the genre of horror, but have we really considered what that influence has revealed to us across the generations? What happens when we tell stories of a culture that has abandoned its moral foundations?
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The Hideous Heart – Poe’s Aesthetic of Accountability

November 8, 2025 • 52 mins
There really isn't that much to say about Poe, is there? He's just creepy. But wait. What if we could explain the supposed madness in all these stories?
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Waypoint – “The Imp of Perversity”

October 31, 2025 • 21 mins
Another Halloween treat from Poe, a reading of this lesser-known tale. And follow the podcast for some ways to think about it and "The Tell-Tale Heart"!
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Waypoint – “The Tell-Tale Heart”

October 28, 2025 • 19 mins
This story, a quintessential Poe classic, is perfect not only for its conception of the psychology of horror, but for our larger discussion in Le Guin's Journey 6. 
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Literary Nomads for Teachers

October 11, 2025 • 56 mins
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
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Literary Nomads for Students

October 3, 2025 • 45 mins
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
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Literary Nomads for Readers

September 26, 2025 • 47 mins
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
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