Waywords Studio Full Slate

  5 Dec 2025 Episode 6.18 – Is All Art Political? The Great Societies, Pt. 1: Metropolis 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). In the process, we discuss an indigenous protest against American Art, the nature o...

  28 Nov 2025 Episode 6.17 – True Horror: Le Guin, Poe, Cavarero, Bataille, and Arendt NOTE: While nothing explicit or graphic is named in this episode, it does touch upon difficult and challenging psychological topics, so it is not recommended for those sensitive to violence and war. We finish our side trail on the implications of Poe’s horror by stepping more deeply into our own...

  21 Nov 2025 Episode 6.16 – Poe: Horror, Pathology, and the Necessity for Care *NOTE: While nothing explicit or graphic is named in this episode, it does touch upon difficult and challenging psychological topics, so it is not recommended for those sensitive to violence and war. We say Poe has influence the genre of horror, but have we really considered what that influence has revealed...

  7 Nov 2025 Episode 6.15 – The “Hideous Heart:” Poe’s Aesthetic of Accountability   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?  We look at the narrators of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Imp of Perversity,” and...

  31 October 2025 Waypoint – “The Imp of Perversity” (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe https://waywordsstudio.com Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Another Halloween treat from Poe, a reading of this lesser-known tale which bears some comparison to “The Tell-Tale Heart.” American pioneer of many literary traditions including the Go...

  28 October 2025 Waypoint – “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe https://waywordsstudio.com Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ American pioneer of many literary traditions including the Gothic tradition, detective fiction, and science fiction, Poe was also a literary critic who well understood the goals of his art, to articulate th...

  10 Oct 2025 Episode 0.3 – Literary Nomads for Teachers   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! And, to be sure I’ve sold you, we’ll offer some fresh approaches to the most-taught poem in the US, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Listen and find...

  3 Oct 2025 Episode 0.2 – Literary Nomads for Students   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! And, to be sure I’ve sold you, we’re looking at one of the lamest choices for literary discussion, the much-overtaught “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. An...

  26 Sept 2025 Episode 0.1 – Literary Nomads for Readers   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! And, to be sure I’ve sold you, we’re looking at one of the lamest choices for literary discussion, the much-overtaught “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. A...

  19 Sept 2025 Episode 6.14 – Le Guin – What I Carry With Me   Now that we’ve wrestled in and with Omelas for a bit, what questions remain for us to take forward on our journey? We’re walking away from Omelas, but let’s have an idea where we’re going.   Complete Resources:  https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/ CHAPTERS 00:00     Re-P...

12 Sept 2025 Episode 6.13 – Le Guin Part 5: Q&A Listeners offer their questions from narrator trust to activism to teaching controversy. I rant–or respond–back. Important Links Mentioned: Have a Question? Literary Nomads Mailbag:  https://forms.gle/WKGp1YWrazNZ3TLt8  Literary Nomads , Journey 5, “Dorian Gray and Difficult Conversations”: https://waywordsstudio.com...

5 Sept 2025 Episode 6.12 – Le Guin Part 4: The Ones Who Stay – N. K. Jemisin Can we pull this utopia dilemma together? Or will we add even more levels of complication? When we wrestle with Le Guin, take solace knowing that others have, too, and so we enter into the dialogue of building utopia, together with its responsibilities! As we explore today, we add Mikhail Bakhtin and George Ba...

29 Aug 2025 Episode 6.11 – Le Guin Part 3: The Reader’s Labyrinth Sure, the Omelas dilemma is tough, but at least we have our narrator as ally, right? Right? Perhaps the real horror in Omelas has less to do with the child at its center. We also discuss how the relationship between culture and the individual, narrator rhetoric, broader allegories, reader psychology, and the alienation e...

22 Aug 2025 Episode 6.10 – Le Guin 2: Architectures of Happiness Is this story really about that suffering child? Or is it more about how we wall its suffering out, then invite it back in? We also discuss how social complicity, blissful ignorance, binary breakdowns, and the pee privileges at Waywords Studio. Our Main Text: Ursula K. Le Guin: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”:...

15 Aug 2025 Episode 6.09 – Le Guin 1: The Hideous Bargain At last we settle in to think about Le Guin’s Omelas story and set aside some common approaches to it. The first of several parts. We also discuss how the obvious question posed by the story may not be the place to start, and how philosopher/historian/critic Rene Girard’s scapegoat theories played a role in Le Guin’s...

8 Aug 2025 Episode 6.08 – Gardens of Imagination – Narrative Utopias Let’s niche down into a small sub-genre of fantasy and explore our desire for it, the classic utopia. As Le Guin’s work is utopia, understanding the genre’s tradition, functions, and roles for readers is our final essential piece prior to taking on the story directly. Some key texts discussed in this...

1 Aug 2025 Episode 6.07 – In Defense of Fantasy Riddle: What do Beowulf , Palmolive dish liquid, and Sarah Maas have in common? Hint: Ursula K. Le Guin knows! Today we wonder at both the disdain of fantasy as genre and its enduring popularity, examine some of Le Guin’s arguments for it as literature, and take a crash course in the history of fantasy across the millennia. Some key texts...

25 July 2025 Episode 6.06 – Stephen King Meets Shel Silverstein: Formalism and Trope in Story What do a children’s story and horror film have in common? Maybe our Suffering Child question, with very different approaches to it. In the meantime, we break down some of the keys to understanding form, genre, trope, medium–and throw some shade of formula, cliches, and stereotypes. Term...

18 July 2025 Episode 6.05 – Negotiating for Space: Compromise and Flag-Planting This is getting challenging. What are we to do with the Suffering Child question? And on which form of suffering do I plant my flag of resistance? Dostoevsky and Langston Hughes both offer clues. The complete reading of Dostoevsky’s “Rebellion” in The Brothers Karamazov : https://drive.google.co...

11 July 2025 Episode 6.04 – Reading: “Rebellion” from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov Still another famous writer has posed the Le Guin question, and he did it in one of Russia’s most famous novels, The Brothers Karamazov . This chapter precedes the more famous and discussed ‘The Grand Inquisitor.’  Here it is. The Complete Reading as pdf: https://driv...

4 July 2025 Episode 6.03 – Otium and The Moral Philosopher – William James Le Guin leans on an essay by William James, but what does that have to do with all our garden talk? It’s about our blind spots and our privilege. Here’s James’s argument and how it sets up a pragmatic popular ethic that may be worrisome. William James: “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral...

27 June 2025 Episode 5.18 Marvell’s Garden and Ours: Otium Speaking of links back to Andrew Marvell’s poetry– weren’t we? –we add a new concept into our repertoire which exposes some of our misapprehensions about nature, leisure, and work. And we read Marvell’s poem “The Garden” while we think green thoughts about it. Confused about our episode numbe...

20 June 2025 Episode 6.02 – “Vaster Than Empires” – Le Guin What does it mean to embrace “Other”? And how might we understand carpe diem if we truly had “world enough and time?” Le Guin shows us in her famous science fiction short story. New to Literary Nomads ? Check out episode 5.00 to find out what we’re all about: https://waywordsstudio.com...

13 June 2025 Episode 6.01 – Signpost: Pretty Gardens in Paint Where we’ve been and where we’re going, and we take a pause in a museum gallery, too! New to Literary Nomads ? Check out episode 5.00 to find out what we’re all about: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords_podcast/an-introduction-and-irony/ Listener Survey Available!  Please let me know what you thought of...

30 May 2025 Episode 6.00 – Trailer Looking ahead at Season 6: Ursula K. Le Guin’s story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” and all the wrestling we do with dilemmas of ethics. New to Literary Nomads ? Check out episode 5.00 to find out what we’re all about: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords_podcast/an-introduction-and-irony/ Listener Survey Available! ...