Podcast appearances and mentions of Leslie Marmon Silko

This week, Melissa, Shannon, and Brooke discuss books written by authors of color. Titles mentioned include: Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy Paola Mendoza & Abby Sher, Sanctuary Liselle Sambury, Delicious Monsters Percival Everett, James Naina Kumar, Say You'll Be Mine Kylie Lee Baker, The Scarlet Alchemist (The Scarlet Alchemist #1) Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony Samira Ahmed, This Book Won't Burn Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage Alice Walker, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women Shane McCrae, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping Kimberly Lemming, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps #1) You can always contact the Book Bistro team by searching @BookBistroPodcast on facebook, or visiting: https://www.facebook.com/BookBistroPodcast/ You can also send an email to: TheBookBistroPodcast@gmail.com For more information on the podcast and the team behind it, please visit: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/book-bistro

What if Earth were furious with humanity? What if revolutionaries took their cues from an unruly planet? Anne Stewart examines depictions of terrestrial upheaval and grassroots rebellion in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, and other works. (Encore presentation.) Anne Stewart, Angry Planet: Decolonial Fiction and the American Third World University of Minnesota Press, 2022 The post Angry Planet appeared first on KPFA.

What if Earth were furious with humanity? What if revolutionaries took their cues from an unruly planet? Anne Stewart examines depictions of terrestrial upheaval and grassroots rebellion in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, and other works. Anne Stewart, Angry Planet: Decolonial Fiction and the American Third World University of Minnesota Press, 2022   The post Angry Planet appeared first on KPFA.

In episode #119, John Evans, owner of Diesel Bookstore talks about selling his independent bookstore, what he'll miss most and how books help us deal with difficult subjects such as war.   Click below to purchase the books at my affiliate Bookshop.org shop, which gives money back to Diesel Bookstore and supports this show. Books recommended:Trilogy by H.D.Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire DedererHomage to Catalonia by George OrwellThe Children's Bach by Helen GarnerCeremony by Leslie Marmon Silko Other books mentioned:The Interestings by Meg WolitzerThe Position by Meg WolitzerVisit Diesel bookstore onlineDiesel Bookstore on InstagramLiterary StampsSupport the showI hope you all have a wonderfully bookish week!

Leslie Marmon Silko discusses her first book of nonfiction, The Turquoise Ledge, in this 2010 conversation with Molly Gloss.

Hello to you listening in Spokane, Washington!Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds for Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga.“I will tell you something about stories, he saidThey aren't just entertainment.Don't be fooled.They are all we have, you see,all we have to fight offillness and death.”   ~ Leslie Marmon Silko, Haida Ceremony [The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant, p. 145]Haida NationI may be an old fashioned storyteller clinging to the oral tradition, especially when working with your narratives that function as origin stories, creation myths, messages of all kinds to be seen, heard, understood, repeated and followed, as well as cautions for the young and memories for the elders. Why do I insist on the music of the spoken word? Because that's where the magic happens: at the intersection of the story, the listener, and the teller's voice with its cadence, tone, inflection, repetition, pacing, and energy.So much gets lost in translation to the printed page. What we yearn for without even knowing it is human connection. My clients learn how to connect with their stories and with themselves to be in better service to their purpose.Question: What would you like to learn about the power of story? When you're ready I can help.  You're invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, I hope you'll subscribe, follow, share a 5-star rating and nice review on your social media or podcast channel of choice, and join us next time! Remember to stop by the SOON-TO-BE-IMPROVED website, check out the Services, arrange a Discovery Call, and Opt In to stay current with Diane and Quarter Moon Story Arts and on LinkedIn.  Stories From Women Who Walk Production TeamPodcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story ArtsMusic: Mer's Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron MusicAll content and image © 2019 to Present: for credit & attribution Quarter Moon Story Arts

Episode 5 of Season 2: we get to chat with Robin McLean about Ceremony by Leslie Marion Silko. And, yeah, this is probably our best episode so far, which isn't shocking because we're talking about talking with Robin McLean.So, all that aside, it's a great conversation and one that could have gone on for hours and hours yet. We could have gone deeper into nuclear weapons/testing, the residential school system, the “fragile web of the world” as Lori describes it, and so much more, but: that's the joy of reading and of great books.So thank you Robin.Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we're coming for you eventually #booktok).Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by TrafficLogo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

In this soul-filling conversation, Leah and I discuss the importance of learning to be one another's story-keepers. We talk about working with art and floral design to help a community remember and heal from the tragic Greenwood Massacre (also known as the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.) We reflect on how working with plants and created-things sustains us. And Leah shares a gracious invitation for us to partner with her and The Wild Mother to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women.  Leah Palmer (she/her) is an 8th generation Afro-Indigenous artist and anti-racism educator located in Oklahoma City. With her two sisters, she is a founder of The Wild Mother, a floral design studio based in the Arts District of Oklahoma city, on Kickapoo, Osage, Wichita and Comanche lands, which should be returned back to these sovereign nations.  In her work as Storyteller at The Wild Mother, Leah spearheads projects that marry art and activism, while engaging with fellow artists to help them discover a unique position in a world that requires art as medicine to educate, reflect truth, and issue healing for broken communities.  She draws inspiration from Black and Brown women and femme voices, such as bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Zora Neal Hurston, Phillis Wheatley, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others whose wisdom and life experiences act both as guidance and a mirror.   She is grateful to stand on and continue the work of her ancestors, E.W. Perry, Peter and Martha Holloway, Gladys Perry, Flordia Palmer, C.L. Stove, Sonny Hawkeye, Marthann, James and Elnora Boykin, and so many others whose lives taught her the ways of healing forwards and backwards through storytelling, truth telling, singing, advocacy, home cooking, and communal love.  Leah's recent work includes a floral installation called SendFlowersToGreenwood, which paid homage to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre; she is the production manager of Juneteenth on the East (2021-present); she is a founder and educator of Lay of the Land, an antiracism workshop for creative small businesses; she is a founder and facilitator of The Conversation Workshops, an antiracism workshop that teaches how to navigate interpersonal racism; she created the main logo for the Justice for Julius campaign and remains an advocate for abolition movements.   Leah received a Bachelors of Arts in English from Oklahoma Baptist University (2013) and a Master of Arts in English from Oklahoma State University (2015). About the Wild Mother Creative Studio: The Wild Mother Creative Studio is a studio florist owned by Afro-Indigenous sisters, Lauren Palmer and Leah Palmer, in the heart of Arts district, Downtown, OKC. Their love and honor of culture, storytelling, and their affinity for natural elements and color theory lend themselves to “Floral Stories” produced by the sisters. It's an added bonus that they get to work alongside their younger sister, Callie, around the studio. TWM offerings include full service wedding and event floral, curbside carryout floral for large-scale events, and holiday floral offering. Enroll in Lay of the Land, a DEI Course for Creative Entrepreneurs https://www.thewildmother.com/workshops Learn More and Contribute to the Send Flowers To MMIW Campaign https://www.thewildmother.com/sendflowersto Follow and Learn from The Conversations Workshop https://www.conversationworkshopsok.com Subscribe to A More Beautiful Way on Substack https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/ Time Stamps: 0:00 Introduction  6:52 Who is Leah Palmer? 9:23 The Wild Mother Origin  16:59 Sending Flowers to Greenwood  34:16 Send Flowers To Project  Episode Notes: For the episode transcript, click here. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bethaney-wilkinson/message

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad. In this episode, Geraldo Cadava and Tasha Sandoval talk with Raquel Gutiérrez about their critically acclaimed book, Brown Neon: Essays, published by Coffee House Press in 2022. Brown Neon won the 2023 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography and the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. It has received praise from the New Yorker, Vogue, Oprah Daily, SPIN, Ms. Magazine, and so many other publications. Gutiérrez, Cadava, and Sandoval discuss the legendary activist Jeanne Córdova, Leslie Marmon Silko, gentrification, belonging, performance, border walls, the Sonoran Desert, the drive on I-10 through Arizona and California, and Tucson. Really, it was a lot about Tucson, and you can thank Sandoval for editing that part down to a reasonable length. On the other hand, if you're from the desert, or just a fan of the “Dirty T,” as Gutiérrez called it, then you're welcome! A critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator, Gutiérrez was born and raised in Los Angeles, and is today based in Tucson. They teach in the low-residency creative writing MFA programs at Oregon State University–Cascades and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Geraldo L. Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hosts the podcast "Writing Latinos." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad. In this episode, Geraldo Cadava and Tasha Sandoval talk with Raquel Gutiérrez about their critically acclaimed book, Brown Neon: Essays, published by Coffee House Press in 2022. Brown Neon won the 2023 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography and the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. It has received praise from the New Yorker, Vogue, Oprah Daily, SPIN, Ms. Magazine, and so many other publications. Gutiérrez, Cadava, and Sandoval discuss the legendary activist Jeanne Córdova, Leslie Marmon Silko, gentrification, belonging, performance, border walls, the Sonoran Desert, the drive on I-10 through Arizona and California, and Tucson. Really, it was a lot about Tucson, and you can thank Sandoval for editing that part down to a reasonable length. On the other hand, if you're from the desert, or just a fan of the “Dirty T,” as Gutiérrez called it, then you're welcome! A critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator, Gutiérrez was born and raised in Los Angeles, and is today based in Tucson. They teach in the low-residency creative writing MFA programs at Oregon State University–Cascades and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Geraldo L. Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hosts the podcast "Writing Latinos." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad. In this episode, Geraldo Cadava and Tasha Sandoval talk with Raquel Gutiérrez about their critically acclaimed book, Brown Neon: Essays, published by Coffee House Press in 2022. Brown Neon won the 2023 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography and the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. It has received praise from the New Yorker, Vogue, Oprah Daily, SPIN, Ms. Magazine, and so many other publications. Gutiérrez, Cadava, and Sandoval discuss the legendary activist Jeanne Córdova, Leslie Marmon Silko, gentrification, belonging, performance, border walls, the Sonoran Desert, the drive on I-10 through Arizona and California, and Tucson. Really, it was a lot about Tucson, and you can thank Sandoval for editing that part down to a reasonable length. On the other hand, if you're from the desert, or just a fan of the “Dirty T,” as Gutiérrez called it, then you're welcome! A critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator, Gutiérrez was born and raised in Los Angeles, and is today based in Tucson. They teach in the low-residency creative writing MFA programs at Oregon State University–Cascades and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Geraldo L. Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hosts the podcast "Writing Latinos." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad. In this episode, Geraldo Cadava and Tasha Sandoval talk with Raquel Gutiérrez about their critically acclaimed book, Brown Neon: Essays, published by Coffee House Press in 2022. Brown Neon won the 2023 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography and the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. It has received praise from the New Yorker, Vogue, Oprah Daily, SPIN, Ms. Magazine, and so many other publications. Gutiérrez, Cadava, and Sandoval discuss the legendary activist Jeanne Córdova, Leslie Marmon Silko, gentrification, belonging, performance, border walls, the Sonoran Desert, the drive on I-10 through Arizona and California, and Tucson. Really, it was a lot about Tucson, and you can thank Sandoval for editing that part down to a reasonable length. On the other hand, if you're from the desert, or just a fan of the “Dirty T,” as Gutiérrez called it, then you're welcome! A critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator, Gutiérrez was born and raised in Los Angeles, and is today based in Tucson. They teach in the low-residency creative writing MFA programs at Oregon State University–Cascades and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Geraldo L. Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hosts the podcast "Writing Latinos." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies

Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony was highly recommended by Cordova in her previously-discussed book on Native American philosophy, How it Is. Today, Professor Kozlowski discusses the book at some length: how it does and does not fit into his study, how it encapsulates much of what he has found in Native American scholarship, and how it connects to his own, personal, experiences and understanding of the world. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ or contact him directly at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com. And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

In this episode, Conference Director Matthew Biberman talks with Mark Alan Mattes about American Afterlives, a sequence of three panels he organized for the upcoming 50th LCLC conference to be held this February 2023. This episode is for scholars of American culture as well as enthusiasts of American multi-ethnic literature, including beloved writers such as Phillis Wheatley Peters, Leslie Marmon Silko, Tiana Clark, as well as Hawthorne, Melville and Whitman.

Bringing together 100 essential critical articles across 4 volumes, Literature and the Environment: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2021) is a comprehensive collection of the most important academic writings on ecocriticism and literature's engagement with environmental crisis. With texts by key scholars, creative writers and activists, the articles in these four volumes follow the development and history of environmental criticism, as well as interdisciplinary conversations with contemporary philosophy and media studies. Literature and the Environment includes work by such writers as: Stacy Alaimo, Jonathan Bate, Winona LaDuke, Laura Pulido, Kyle Powis Whyte, Jacques Derrida, Ursula K. Heise, Bruno Latour, Rob Nixon, Ken Saro-Wiwa, William Shakespeare, Leslie Marmon Silko, Henry David Thoreau, Rita Wong. E.O. Wilson, Cary Wolfe and William Wordsworth. Stephanie LeMenager is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Distinguished Professor in English and American Literature and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. She is co-founder (with Stephanie Foote) of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and her previous books include Living Oil: Petroleum and Culture in the American Century (2014). Teresa Shewry is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the author of Hope At Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature (2015). Gargi Binju is a researcher at the University of Tübingen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Hello to you listening in Spokane, Washington!Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds for Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga.“I will tell you something about stories, he saidThey aren't just entertainment.Don't be fooled.They are all we have, you see,all we have to fight offillness and death.”   ~ Leslie Marmon Silko, Haida Ceremony [The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant, p. 145]Haida NationI may be an old fashioned storyteller clinging to the oral tradition, especially when working with your narratives that function as origin stories, creation myths, messages of all kinds to be seen, heard, understood, repeated and followed, as well as cautions for the young and memories for the elders. Why do I insist on the music of the spoken word? Because that's where the magic happens: at the intersection of the story, the listener, and the teller's voice with its cadence, tone, inflection, repetition, pacing, and energy.So much gets lost in translation to the printed page. What we yearn for without even knowing it is human connection. My clients learn how to connect with their stories and with themselves to be in better service to their purpose.Question: What would you like to learn about the power of story? When you're ready I can help.  You're invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, I hope you'll subscribe, follow, share a 5-star rating and nice review on your social media or podcast channel of choice, and join us next time! Remember to stop by the SOON-TO-BE-IMPROVED website, check out the Services, arrange a Discovery Call, and Opt In to stay current with Diane and Quarter Moon Story Arts and on LinkedIn.  Stories From Women Who Walk Production TeamPodcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story ArtsMusic: Mer's Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron MusicAll content and image © 2019 to Present: for credit & attribution Quarter Moon Story Arts

Bringing together 100 essential critical articles across 4 volumes, Literature and the Environment: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2021) is a comprehensive collection of the most important academic writings on ecocriticism and literature's engagement with environmental crisis. With texts by key scholars, creative writers and activists, the articles in these four volumes follow the development and history of environmental criticism, as well as interdisciplinary conversations with contemporary philosophy and media studies. Literature and the Environment includes work by such writers as: Stacy Alaimo, Jonathan Bate, Winona LaDuke, Laura Pulido, Kyle Powis Whyte, Jacques Derrida, Ursula K. Heise, Bruno Latour, Rob Nixon, Ken Saro-Wiwa, William Shakespeare, Leslie Marmon Silko, Henry David Thoreau, Rita Wong. E.O. Wilson, Cary Wolfe and William Wordsworth. Stephanie LeMenager is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Distinguished Professor in English and American Literature and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. She is co-founder (with Stephanie Foote) of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and her previous books include Living Oil: Petroleum and Culture in the American Century (2014). Teresa Shewry is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the author of Hope At Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature (2015). Gargi Binju is a researcher at the University of Tübingen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Bringing together 100 essential critical articles across 4 volumes, Literature and the Environment: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2021) is a comprehensive collection of the most important academic writings on ecocriticism and literature's engagement with environmental crisis. With texts by key scholars, creative writers and activists, the articles in these four volumes follow the development and history of environmental criticism, as well as interdisciplinary conversations with contemporary philosophy and media studies. Literature and the Environment includes work by such writers as: Stacy Alaimo, Jonathan Bate, Winona LaDuke, Laura Pulido, Kyle Powis Whyte, Jacques Derrida, Ursula K. Heise, Bruno Latour, Rob Nixon, Ken Saro-Wiwa, William Shakespeare, Leslie Marmon Silko, Henry David Thoreau, Rita Wong. E.O. Wilson, Cary Wolfe and William Wordsworth. Stephanie LeMenager is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Distinguished Professor in English and American Literature and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. She is co-founder (with Stephanie Foote) of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and her previous books include Living Oil: Petroleum and Culture in the American Century (2014). Teresa Shewry is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the author of Hope At Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature (2015). Gargi Binju is a researcher at the University of Tübingen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Bringing together 100 essential critical articles across 4 volumes, Literature and the Environment: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2021) is a comprehensive collection of the most important academic writings on ecocriticism and literature's engagement with environmental crisis. With texts by key scholars, creative writers and activists, the articles in these four volumes follow the development and history of environmental criticism, as well as interdisciplinary conversations with contemporary philosophy and media studies. Literature and the Environment includes work by such writers as: Stacy Alaimo, Jonathan Bate, Winona LaDuke, Laura Pulido, Kyle Powis Whyte, Jacques Derrida, Ursula K. Heise, Bruno Latour, Rob Nixon, Ken Saro-Wiwa, William Shakespeare, Leslie Marmon Silko, Henry David Thoreau, Rita Wong. E.O. Wilson, Cary Wolfe and William Wordsworth. Stephanie LeMenager is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Distinguished Professor in English and American Literature and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. She is co-founder (with Stephanie Foote) of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and her previous books include Living Oil: Petroleum and Culture in the American Century (2014). Teresa Shewry is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the author of Hope At Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature (2015). Gargi Binju is a researcher at the University of Tübingen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Leslie Marmon Silko discusses her first book of nonfiction, The Turquoise Ledge, in this 2010 conversation with Molly Gloss.

Joseph Osmundson joins Eric Newman to discuss VIROLOGY, his new collection of essays published in June by Norton. Joe is a professor of microbiology at NYU, critic, essayist, and co-host of the Food4Thot podcast. Part memoir, part COVID diary, part essayistic journey into questions of risk, identity, and modern culture, Virology loosely explores what queer thought and experience can help us see and understand about viruses, and what a close look at viruses can help us understand about ourselves and our relation to others and the world. Two major pandemics saturate the book—the legacy of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and the COVID19 pandemic of the past several years. In looking at how queerness, risk, and social bonds intersect with moments of peak medical crisis, Joe searches out how we have been challenged and changed by pandemics and what new worlds we can build out of that experience. Also, Ruth Wilson Gilmore returns to recommend six books, which, taken together, renew her faith in "human internationalism from below." The titles and authors are: Sinews of War and Trade by Laleh Khalili, Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko, Those Bones are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara, Return of a Native by Vron Ware, The Common Wind by Julius S. Scott, and the collection As If She Were Free edited by Erica L Ball, Tatiana Seijas, and Terri L Snyder.

Joseph Osmundson joins Eric Newman to discuss VIROLOGY, his new collection of essays published in June by Norton. Joe is a professor of microbiology at NYU, critic, essayist, and co-host of the Food4Thot podcast. Part memoir, part COVID diary, part essayistic journey into questions of risk, identity, and modern culture, Virology loosely explores what queer thought and experience can help us see and understand about viruses, and what a close look at viruses can help us understand about ourselves and our relation to others and the world. Two major pandemics saturate the book—the legacy of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and the COVID19 pandemic of the past several years. In looking at how queerness, risk, and social bonds intersect with moments of peak medical crisis, Joe searches out how we have been challenged and changed by pandemics and what new worlds we can build out of that experience. Also, Ruth Wilson Gilmore returns to recommend six books, which, taken together, renew her faith in "human internationalism from below." The titles and authors are: Sinews of War and Trade by Laleh Khalili, Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko, Those Bones are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara, Return of a Native by Vron Ware, The Common Wind by Julius S. Scott, and the collection As If She Were Free edited by Erica L Ball, Tatiana Seijas, and Terri L Snyder.

Here's something we hear all the time: if only more people knew more about environmental problems, then they would certainly act in some ecologically beneficial way. But the problem is, it's not true. We're now deluged with data about the climate crisis; and yet, this abundance of available environmental information has not led to an abundance of environmental action.This deficit model of climate communication is flawed, even though scientists, environmentalists, and other proponents of climate action continue to speak and act as if people would do more if they just knew more about the climate crisis and understood the science of climate change.Heather Houser writes about environmental ideas and themes in art, literature, culture, and the humanities. Her work blossoms with keen insights about the importance of culture in confronting ecological crisis.Heather is Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin. I met her many years ago in Austin, when I was developing a film about dance and environmental justice. She is both a dancer and an environmental humanities scholar.Our conversation explores climate information overload, the idea of what she calls eco-sickness in literature, the thorny topic of human population size, and whether artists should reject or rework artistic tools of the past that might be tainted by colonialism, racism, or other forms of oppression.You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word!Heather HouserHeather Houser, Ph.D, is Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin, and the author of two brilliant books: Infowhelm: Environmental Art & Literature in an Age of Data (2020), and Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect (2014), which won the 2015 Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2014 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize. She is also a co-founder of Planet Texas 2050, UT Austin's climate resilience-focused research challenge, and has led the following initiatives for the environmental humanities: 2015-16 Texas Institute for Literary & Textual Studies, Environmental Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, and Texas Ecocritics Network.Quotation Read by Heather Houser“It's astounding the first time you realize that a stranger has a body - the realization that he has a body makes him a stranger. It means that you have a body, too. You will live with this forever, and it will spell out the language of your life.”- James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could TalkRecommended Readings & MediaIntroJohn FiegeHere's something we hear all the time: if only more people knew more about environmental problems, then they would certainly act in some ecologically beneficial way. But the problem is, it's not true. We're now deluged with data about the climate crisis; and yet, this abundance of available environmental information has not led to an abundance of environmental action.This deficit model of climate communication is flawed, even though scientists, environmentalists, and other proponents of climate action continue to speak and act as if people would do more if they just knew more about the climate crisis and understood the science of climate change.Heather Houser writes about environmental ideas and themes in art, literature, culture, and the humanities. Her work blossoms with keen insights about the importance of culture in confronting ecological crisis.Heather HouserI mean, especially if you are an environmentalist, you pay attention to these issues. But really, even if you're, you know, you're not, there's a lot just so much like information coming at us about, say, the percentage of extinct mammals, right, how many mammal species are extinct, or bird species are extinct? All the data about climate crisis, whether it's like warming temperatures, ocean acidification, you know, how much of the ice sheet has melted? You know, it's all all this data is like, how do you make sense of that? Yeah. What do you do with that? I mean, what do you do with that, not only as a way to understand the phenomena at maybe, you know, objective or straightforward level. But what do you do with that emotionally if you're an artist or communicator.John FiegeI'm John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis.Heather Houser is Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin. I met her many years ago in Austin, when I was developing a film about dance and environmental justice. Heather is both a dancer and an environmental humanities scholar.Our conversation explores climate information overload, the idea of what she calls eco-sickness in literature, the thorny topic of human population size, and whether artists should reject or rework artistic tools of the past that might be tainted by colonialism, racism, or other forms of oppression.Here is Heather Houser.---ConversationJohn FiegeSo, I'd like to start with an essay you're working on about your childhood, which you shared with me. In this piece, you talk about the instability of your upbringing - from your parents' rocky marriage to their financial woes. And the constant moves that resulted. You moved about thirteen times in your childhood, largely around the Poconos region in Pennsylvania, I think, and to other states as well. In the midst of that instability and constant "shifting ground" as you call it, you found a sense of stability, grounding and joy in dance. You write:“At this age I hadn't yet met the idea of the plateau or of the precipitous fall. This was the time for the joy of movement, the satisfactions of devotion, and a belief that the alchemy of body, space, music and time can make you other than who you are and where you came from.”I love this idea of seeing your childhood and who you became through this lens of dance. Can you talk more about where you come from and maybe what your relationship to the rest of nature was as a child? And how this, this alchemy of body, space, music, and time led to your interests in the environment?Heather HouserYeah, thank you. So I was born in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania, which is in the North East part of the state right along the New Jersey border. And if you know it at all, you likely know it as a tourist destination for urbanites, you know. When - this was, I should say I was born there in 1979 and grew up there with one one gap when I lived in Massachusetts, but I lived there from 1979 to 1997.I think things have changed, but back then, it was - certainly there were a lot of resorts, honeymoon destinations, summer camps, so a large tourist influx from New York and New Jersey and Philadelphia. But then there were the locals like myself, so it was a place of abundant nature, I would say. You know, the Appalachian Trail ended and started there. Lots of lakes. It's a hardwood forest area, lots of ponds and creeks, or, as I say, in that essay, "cricks" my grammy and pappy said. I didn't pick that up, but that's what parts of my family called creeks.But that was actually not my family's orientation. So I lived in this place with so many things I now wish were right outside my door. And, of course, Austin, TX has its own beautiful environments, but, I honestly did none of that. There was one swimming hole we would go to called the 40-foot. It was a 40-foot jump, which I did not do because I was afraid of heights, but I don't remember swimming in the lakes or the "cricks" aside from that. We never went on hikes, except for maybe, you know, walks in the woods near our house (or houses, since there were many of them).So that relationship that I now have, like the appreciation and really the need to be outside is, is something that developed really in my college years when I lived in Portland, Oregon.  When I think about dance and the environment, personally - and my relationship to it - is about movement. Being able to move in space, I think is one of the continuites from my dance persona to my like, environmental appreciation. And even though those are completely divorced - or separate, just didn't really exist when I was a kid - I feel that continuity now for sure.John FiegeAnd you know when you were in the Poconos area as a child. Did you have a, did you have a sense of people from the cities coming there as like a location of nature and looking for this kind of pristine wilderness experience, did you have a sense of that?Heather HouserOh absolutely, and you know, I mean, this is - I was very hard on the place when I lived there. I mean, I really wanted out. I went almost as far as you could go within the continental United States when I went to college. Kind of foolishly to go to a private liberal arts college across the country. But it worked out OK. But I did not - I mean, I definitely knew that people were coming to the Poconos for that experience of nature, and wilderness. And you would, quite honestly - I interacted a lot with tourists because I worked at an ice cream shop - one of those time-honored things you do on the summer vacation is going to the ice-cream shop.John FiegeHow iconic.Heather HouserBut you know, I was there - not stuck there, I wouldn't say that. Because I did like that job and my bosses and coworkers so I didn't feel stuck, but certainly different experience. And so I had a lot of contact with tourists that way, but really never befriended any tourists or had deep interactions with them, but it was clear that was a big part of the experience, was something so drastically different from, say, NYC or Philadelphia. And I mean we used to kind of, you know, make fun of or just roll our eyes at tourists, sort of fascinated by the so-called "wildlife" that for us was much more domesticated.You know, like, certainly we had wildlife, we had bears that would come up. We lived in pretty remote - even within the Poconos - pretty remote parts, 'cause there is like a downtown area that's a little bit denser. But we always lived outside of that. And we had bears that would walk up our driveway, and we had, we had turkeys like a turkey mound that they just hung out on, and these sorts of things. So there was some, there were some animals that were, maybe even felt a little bit wilder even to us.But yeah, so we would just find it amusing that tourists would find things like foxes or you know, deer, like really, fascinating, and even frightening, right? Like these things that you're not used to seeing are often scary. Even if there isn't much reason to be afraid of them.You know, I wasn't taking as much advantage of what surrounded me as I would at this point in my life, and so in some sense, I think the people who are coming in maybe appreciated it more than I did because it was such a stark difference from their day-to-day reality. But of course, like most tourist destinations, it had it's very - pretty detrimental effects, right? All that tourism.John FiegeRight, the development and the trash and the traffic.Heather HouserYeah, traffic and all of that, yeah.John FiegeWell, let's fast forward to what you're doing now. So, what are the environmental humanities, and how did you come to focus your work within that field?Heather HouserYeah, so the environmental humanities. I mean, it really encompasses a cluster of academic disciplines - like history and literary studies and religious studies and anthropology. Often it can capture the arts too, creative arts, but really (that academic cluster aside), it's it's really the - the impetus behind the environmental humanities is, a recognition that we can't understand human relationships to the more-than-human (or "nature," as we you know, typically call it), we really can't understand that through scientific or policy or economic approaches alone. That we need to also understand the cultural aspects of that. We need to understand the artistic aspects of human relationships to nature.So, that's one dimension of that. Like, if we're going to understand human relationships to nature, which vary over time and across cultures, we really can't just rely on some quantitative analyses. But another dimension, I think, looking forward, is if - thinking especially of environmental issues, challenges disasters. We also need those cultural, historical, and artistic understandings if we are going to really address these challenges, especially in an equitable manner. That - you know thinking about the history of, for example, climate policy you know? Or thinking about the history of colonialism when we're thinking about how to respond to climate crisis today, you know, we need those historical dimensions if we're going to move people.And this "we" is variable, right? Like it's not that there's a uniform across the environmental humanities, there's certainly not a uniform outcome that people have in mind. But if you're thinking about responses to say climate crisis or extinction, whatever it might be, that you need to also marshal all that cultural representation, all that artistic expression, bring to the conversation. Because that's really what moves people, it's what helps people imagine other futures, and also to reflect on what brought us to the present. So it's really, you know, historical, cultural, and artistic and expressive - and within the cultural I also think of, you know, spiritual and religious dimensions of environmental relation and responses.John FiegeRight.Heather HouserYou asked me how I came to this - I was an English major as an undergraduate, and then took some time not in school. But when I went back to graduate school, I didn't know that that would be a focus. I actually thought, I had lived in Portland Oregon, and living there had become much more attuned to environmentalism, largely of an urban nature, but not necessarily exclusively. And also just had become - became much more of an outdoors person, camping, backpacking, hiking. All of those things.But I thought that was a part of my personal and political life and not part of my academic or intellectual life, right? But midway or so through my graduate - time in Graduate School - you know, you need to define your dissertation. And I really had two paths I was considering. And one was just was finding a way to merge my personal interest in commitments to environmentalism with my academic life, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Actually, I didn't have coursework in that area, but there was my advisor in a professor, Ursula Heiser, she's really a one of the most prominent people in the field of environmental humanities. So she was she was at Stanford, where I went to grad school. So I certainly had someone to guide me, which she did, amazingly. But yeah, it was, it was a question for me of whether to keep certain spheres of my life separate or to try to bring them together, and I decided to bring them together.John FiegeAnd was that a good decision, in retrospect?Heather HouserI made that decision because I thought that could carry me through some of those hard and dark times of being a graduate student, like to sort of think about my commitments beyond the academic sphere. But it has - it is challenging, in that it can feel like everything is a part of everything, and you know, activism or serving on advisory groups or whatever it might be outside of the academic world, and suddenly it's not at all separate, right? So, I don't know. I think it served me well. But there are weeks and days where it can feel, yeah, like there is no "outside".John FiegeWell, I can feel the passion of it in how you write, and what you write, so I think that's, you know, that's definitely the positive side of it. So, your first book is called Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction, so can you tell me - what is "ecosickness"?Heather HouserSo that idea is - it's really capturing how often, environmental degradation or change and bodily damage, or change - how often those things go together. There were a number of writers I was noticing, and I talk about - Leslie Marmon Silko and Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, among others - in their writing, you know, they are taking stock of environmental damage, in most cases in the literature that I was examining. And at the same time, they're taking account of all of the transformations to bodies that are happening in the 21st century.And you know, I think in a more scientific register or even a more maybe environmental justice register, we often think of these as "causal relationships," right? So there's a toxin that a polluting industry is releasing into the water, and people consume that. And then they experience maybe cancer or neurological change or, you know, infertility or reproductive changes. I think that causal relationship between the environment and the body is pretty prominent in our thinking of environmental health, but a lot of these authors weren't thinking so directly causally. It was more - they're interested in how we actually can conceptualize the environment, and what's happening to it, in terms of the body  - and a body that's sick rather than a healthy body.Now back in the 19th century in the US, with some of the white male proto- or early environmentalists like John Muir, Henry David Thoreau. You know, that relationship between the environment and the body was also often one of health, and robustness, and, you know, getting out into nature and climbing mountains - and you know, sort of overcoming some of the challenges.But in the 21st century, or late 20th century and 21st century, certainly that still exists, but we often have an understanding of the relationship between the body and the environment through, through sickness or damage or some kind. So the book is like tracking how really, that phenomenon, that it exists, and also then how it manifests very formally, artistically in a set of novels and memoirs.John FiegeYeah, and you mentioned you mentioned Rachel Carson as well, who is one of my favorite writers. And she's known as a non-fiction writer but, it made me think of the opening of Silent Spring, which is kind of written like fiction. I think even referred to it that way. And so I wanted to read just a quick section of that, 'cause I thought maybe - I would be curious to hear how you relate this to this idea of ecosickness. So this is from the opening chapter in Silent Spring called the Fable of Tomorrow. So Rachel Carson writes:“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example, where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere where moribund. They trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices.”So how does this, how does this passage in this book relate to this larger body of ecosickness literature? You know, in in this example, there's there's sickness in the body of the bird, not body of human, but later in the book she talks about it in the body of humans.Heather HouserWell, Rachel Carson is just an amazing writer. I mean, she's certainly probably most popularly known for Silent Spring, but her writings on the ocean are just amazing. And she calls that the fable for reason, so she's already marking it as some you know, somewhat fictional. But of course, fables always point us to deeper truths.John FiegeRight.Heather HouserSo, and there's been - I mean, there's been billions of words written about that opening, I don't really write about that opening, but Carson is really inspirational to me in that project of Ecosickness, but also she's really inspirational for thinking about this relationship between the environment, and the body, through through illness, through rapid transformations that were unforeseen. But that - I mean, there's no causality in that opening, right? The rest of the book is explaining the mechanisms of that, and the sources of the death and disruption of bird populations, among other animals, including humans. But in that opening, right, it's this more evocative feeling of, of the consequences, like there's something out of joint here, right? There's no more birdsong. We don't, maybe yet know why, but we know that that's a problem.And I mean, I think one of the reasons that so important for thinking about Ecosickness, or you know, environmental health outside of strict causalities. That is, like something that you can conclusively prove through empirical studies, scientific research data, all of that. I think it's important to think outside of those, because it takes a long time - and sometimes it's even impossible - to pin down causalities and that feels really comforting like, especially when you want redress, you want blame, you want compensation, you want quick solutions.But even before you get there, like to feel that something is wrong and not to ignore it, like that's something that that opening I think really does powerfully, as, as an entree to the rest of the book. And like certainly does for my project of Ecosickness. Like these authors aren't trying to directly explain how, say, depression results from a toxin. It's more thinking about, you know, a toxic environment more broadly and how they coexist and have similar mechanisms and manifestations.John FiegeYeah, well, you know Rachel Carson fits into the next thing I want to talk to you about as well. You know, I think one thing that makes her so powerful is she's, she's a scientist who really - who's been trained as a scientist, really knows the science, and she's a brilliant writer - which is a really rare combination. And I love what you say in the opening of your book about the importance of literary and humanistic knowledge. You talk about how science illiteracy is no longer an option for humanists. But at the same time, you flip that to argue that narrative illiteracy is no longer an option for scientists, or anyone who wants to confront environmental issues. Can you talk about what you mean here?Heather HouserYeah, so um - and that's where that that idea of complementarity comes in, right. Like meeting and sort of both sides coming to a middle more than anyone abandoning a side that is science or art and narrative. There's this amazing book that I write about in my second book, Infowhelm, called Objectivity by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, who are historians of science. But they talk about epistemic values - which I know epistemic is a jargon-y term, but basically, the values that are privileged in a knowledge enterprise, like science. And so you know, things like objectivity, things like quantification, causality, universality, things like that.So also understanding those aspects of science are, I think, part of scientific literacy. But then on the other - you know, the compliment there is when I say that narrative literacy is so important is, I think, goes back to earlier in our conversation. That - I've said this a million times, so I kind of  chuckle when I say it, like, data and facts alone are not going to, as you said earlier, "move the needle." It's really through storytelling, understanding the stories and all dimensions of the stories that move people - or don't move people - to think about and act on an issue. And that can often be thought of as science communication. But it's so much more than that, because-John FiegeIt's not a very exciting term, right?Heather HouserAnd there are people doing great work with that and using the arts for that, so I don't want to dismiss that way of thinking about things, but there's so much - communication, and the way it can be understood, I guess in in “laypersons terms” can seem like unidirectional. Like, we have this bit of information, we need to find the best way to get it out into people's ears and eyes, right.But really, I think narrative just introduces so much more complexity that - there really isn't anything unidirectional or predictable about the way stories affect people, right? So, narrative literacy is not only - it's similar to scientific literacy. It's like, “well, what are the stories already out there, and how can those be understood as providing a foundation for environmental relations?” And also, I'm also thinking about environmental futures. But then it also means understanding how narratives work, and they aren't often so predictable or-John FiegeRight.Heather HouserAs some - as one might think.John FiegeYeah, and you say you write in your book that particular tropes, metaphors, and narrative patterns carry an “affective charge” that can activate environmental care, when empirical studies alone cannot. And so if I'm reading this correctly, you're not saying that any kind of storytelling can activate environmental care, but that particular kinds of storytelling can. And I just wonder if you could talk a bit more about that, and maybe even describe some of these tropes, metaphors, and narrative patterns more specifically that you're thinking about.Heather HouserYeah, in Ecosickness, one of the things I was interested in, as I said, their affect or emotion, the way that narratives generate and represent emotions, and how that does a lot of work on its own to, to affect how people are understanding an environmental problem and reacting to it. So for example, the emotion of anxiety. This is a really powerful emotion, in environmental representation of disasters, or future disasters, or, you know, climate change in general. You know, cultivating, generating anxiety is something that a lot of you know, dystopian or apocalyptic environmental narratives will do. It makes us anxious, makes us uncomfortable, makes us uncertain. You know, anxiety is much more amorphous. Like, there might be sources for it, but it becomes this like pervasive, nebulous thing that's very hard to like, solve, or surmount.So anxiety is this emotion that I think is quite familiar from representations of environmental damage or crisis. And I look at Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Almanac of the Dead, which is a very, very large, sprawling and challenging novel. 'cause it does depict a lot of the horrors of colonialism, and oppression, and violence against indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. But this, it's a novel that really cultivates anxiety. And so I was interested in that as certainly a powerful way to help people think about problems, right? And to recognize them as problems.But then what happens to that emotion, right? Like is this an emotion - it might lead to care or to awareness, but is it an emotion you can act on? Or is it an emotion that actually shuts you down, because it is so powerful, pervasive, but also overwhelming. So I think about, you know, those. And I also think about an emotion like wonder. You know, very different. Like has a lot of positive associations with it. But you know what, what are some of the environmental understandings and actions that an emotion like wonder can produce?John FiegeAnd another emotion you discuss is optimism. And you have this wonderful discussion of the split between environmental writers and activists on this question of optimism. So does hope fuel our ability to address ecological crisis, or does hope hinder our ability to confront very daunting realities? Or do these contradictory thoughts happen all at the same time? So here's one of my favorite lines from your conclusion:“Smart grid, smart phones and smart cars won't alone won't deliver us from our dumb ways of living, so much as perpetuate them.”So can you talk a bit about this complicated, contradictory idea of optimism?Heather HouserI think we often hear it with more through the - and you said this a moment ago - through the idea of “hope” because I mean, often we conflate hope and optimism. But some people like to keep them separate. Like that optimism can be taken as an even more, like a stronger expectation that things will just work out okay no matter what. Whereas, hope is often, I think, a little more mixed. At least within environmentalist circles. But hope is this emotion that I think drives you, even if you don't know, or even if you think things will not work out okay.There's a - I think it's, well, it's an anticipatory emotion as they say, much like anxiety. Like you're sort of looking out into the future, and imagining what that future might hold. And you - I think what's, what's useful about the reason - at least I remain hopeful, even though I do not remain optimistic, I guess - is that it's something that can drive you in the present, right, even if what you look at on the other side in the future, you're not really sure that it will all work out okay, sort of in the day-to-day reminds you that there's something you care about, that you want to preserve or improve.And so I think that for me, hope is about care, regardless of the outcome. And just how it motivates people to stay engaged, to form communities around issues and to act, even if they're not certain that action is going to make any any great changes.John FiegeRight. Yeah, well within the environmental film world I hear funders and others talk all the time about the importance of hopeful narratives, and they want, they want films to go in positive directions and make people feel empowered to act, rather than hopeless or solely produce anxiety like what you were saying before.But you know, I, I don't disagree with that, but I question it. You know, I think of a book like David Wallace Wells The Uninhabitable Earth. You know, that is a very anxiety producing book that came out, what, last year? Um, but it maybe had some of the biggest impact on the environmental conversation last year. Broadly, I'd say. I, I feel like that - those modes of anxiety and fear and danger you know can be very motivating also. So you know, it makes me think. Do we need to hunt for a particular emotion or do we need to cover the range of emotions?Heather HouserYeah, yeah, and I want to - like, I think in some comments earlier, it might sound like I was saying there's something conclusive, or definite. Like “oh, we'll just find the right narrative, find the right emotion and that will do XY or Z, whatever your XY or Z are.” But I don't think that. Yeah, it's not - one of the, I think important, aspects of emotional and narrative literacy is that the trajectories are not so certain. You might think you're writing a hopeful ending, or you might think you're cultivating concern, actionable concern, when in fact you're deadening people, or overwhelming. You know, just nothing is so predictable in how people respond to a story.There's often a desire to have a hopeful ending without a recognition of what has come before, as if you end on a certain note, and that - that that is a teleology, or an end point that the whole narrative is driving toward. But actually we have responses to the, you know, everything that came before, that an ending can't necessarily compensate for, or redirect. So I think there's also that tendency to think like, if you end on hope something is accomplished.And that's where, I mean, I often use the phrase “cocktail of emotions” in my writing. Because it is. It is this blend of things that you know, just like when you're making cocktail. If you are - if you don't drink, your baking. Like you wouldn't know from those ingredients, you know, what necessarily will result, and often not the same thing does result. Even if the ingredients are, you know, you start from the same recipe and it's not right.John FiegeSo the title of your second book is Infowhelm, that's one of those words that I never heard before. But as soon as I heard it, I instantly thought I knew what it meant.Heather HouserGood! So when I was shopping around that title, like most people would say that, but some people would say, “oh, but why these this wonky, weird word?” But -John FiegeRight, right. So does it mean what we think it means? And how does it - you know, and specifically, why it was related to our ecological state of being. So I was wondering if you could talk about that a bit.Heather HouserYes. And I should say, I did not coin the word, though I think I came up with it, and then looked to see if other people had used it. And you know, you never know how words worm their way into your brain, and you don't even know they're there. But yes, that word has been out there, but not, not so prominent as words like info-fatigue, or whatever it might be. But it is what you think it means, which is like being overwhelmed by a lot of information.And the way I saw that pertaining to environmental issues, and actually, the conclusion to Ecosickness, is a bridge, somewhat of a bridge, into Infowhelm. In thinking about, how does data feel when we consume it? Especially those of us in, you know, more privileged or wealthy media consumers in the West, in America, where you can be deluged by news, Twitter, post-feeds, whatever, all the time. And what does it feel like to have all of that data, all of that information coming at you, when it's not even really bidden? It's not like you're always even looking for it.And so, Infowhelm sort of acknowledges that phenomenon that so much is coming at us. And in the environmental sphere, I think, I mean, especially if you are an environmentalist, you pay attention to these issues but really, even if you're, you know, you're not, there's a lot - just so much like information coming at us about, say, the percentage of extinct mammals, right? How many mammal species are extinct, or bird species are extinct? All the data about climate crisis, whether it's like warming temperatures, ocean acidification, you know, how much of a, of the ice sheet has melted? You know, it's all, all this data, especially that just can stream at us?John FiegeLike, how do you make sense of that?Heather HouserYeah. What do you do with that? I mean, what do you do with that, not only as a way to understand the phenomena at maybe, you know, objective or straightforward level. But what do you do with that, emotionally, if you're an artist, or communicator? I don't just write about artworks in that book. Like, what do you do as a way to convey that information? And what are you also evoking when you when you do that? And that's where the sort of like history and traditions of science piece comes in.John FiegeRight. And you talk about, you talk about a deficit model of climate communication, which you say, holds that the public's lack of information and comprehension is the primary obstacle to environmental action. So, what's wrong with this deficit model, and why has an abundance of available environmental information not led to an abundance of environmental Action?Heather HouserThat deficit model, you know, sociologists, psychologist, science communications people, communications people have, have really talked about this a lot. And it's an idea that the problem is just that people don't have all of the facts. And if they just saw the complete picture of what's happening, say, with climate change - or if it's something like toxic environments, and public health - if they just had all the information, then surely, you know, we would collectively act to make changes. Or individually, like, you know, well, surely you would choose to drive less or fly less, or whatever it might be. And you know, that model of like, “people are vessels, and you just fill them with information, and the outcome will be predictable,” or maybe a factory model, right, you like, input some ingredients, and then there would be this output.That just doesn't work. As you said, I think at the beginning of this conversation, you know, the so much -  there's a lot more to know, of course but - so much of the scientific phenomena of climate change, like changes to our geophysical processes resulting from carbon or methane in the atmosphere, a lot of that is known, or it's known enough. And yet here, here we are in America, but really globally, here we are too.And so we need to account for all of the other factors that come into play, when people are making decisions at individual and communal, governmental levels, when they're making - when they're responding to that information. I mean, there's certainly an element. And I don't even get into this too much. Because I think there's been a lot of work about like, denialism. There are books like and studies like Merchants of Doubt that just show like, there's right there's people denying the information and clouding it.But that aside, it's still not a direct, like, give people information, and they respond this way. So we need to understand the emotional factors, issues of race and class and, economics and geography and sex, sexuality, gender. All of these things that really play, play such an important role when people are responding to that information. And I think that's where, where the arts and different forms of cultural representation are so important.John FiegeYeah, and I love in this book, how, you know, you're looking at these writers and artists who incorporate scientific information into their work. But the way they do it addresses both the limits, and the necessity of knowledge derived from science. And one thing you write is, “artists are key players, not only in making sense of climate crisis, but in making meaning from it.” I was wondering if you could talk about how making sense and making meaning are related, but different?Heather Houser The sense part might be more like that picture, that maybe a science teacher or someone wants to paint, of just what are the, what are the processes at play here? So, what does happen when we put so many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? What does get affected? That's maybe, you know, making sense of it. Because it is, I mean, it's not as if climate crisis is like, straightforward, right. It's like, terribly complex. So there's that sense making, just like what is this thing? And how did it happen? And what is happening to, to the natural world, and the social world in response?But then the meaning is, okay, so what do people do with that, that knowledge? How does it become relevant to their daily lives? How does it not become relevant to their daily lives? How does it become - even if it feels irrelevant to their lives - how does it become a matter of concern about other people's lives, and other beings' lives that might be affected? That, yeah, the meaning is just what we think what we do with that, or different groups do with that information. And how we respond to it.John FiegeRight, right. And let's talk about the God's eye view from aerial photographs and satellite imagery for a minute. In Infowhelm, you say, “in the 21st century that air is the space from which millions access new places and perspectives on the planet.” And this connects back to the first photographs taken of Earth from space, which emerged as the modern environmental movement was gaining momentum. And many people argue that these photographs themselves helped catalyze the environmental movement. Most famously, “Earthrise” in 1968, and “The Blue Marble” in 1972. When astronauts, rather than satellites, were actually taking the pictures.And for the first time, many people saw the earth not as vast and limitless, but as finite and fragile floating, and vast emptiness. And they wanted to protect it from harm. And you explore how literary and visual artists use aerial techniques to point out some of the problematic histories of the aerial perspective, and at the same time show how it can be used to reorient our relationship to the earth and ecological crisis. Can you talk a little bit about, about this tension that emerges in these works?Heather Houser Yes, certainly. So I mean, the view from space has been analyzed quite extensively in environmental studies. And so this, you know, my thinking about it is extending off of that work. And it is often thought of as this catalyst environmentalism but, then there's also this thought of how it is a position of mastery or control, right. Like, even if you see the fragility of the earth, it can also instigate a feeling of, “well, this is something I can take care of.” Which is a good sentiment, but also, “this is something I have some control or some mastery over.” So that's where that God's eye view.I mean, Donna Haraway is a very famous thinker about what that view, that God's eye perspective entails. This idea of mastery, objectivity, as well, authority, those sorts of sentiments that are, you know - can be quite problematic for, you know, not only what one does to the environment, but the, you know, how it impacts different communities as well. And so the artists, I, I was looking at - not just artists, also activists that I was looking at - they absolutely acknowledge the affordances, you know, of the aerial. Like how important, how powerful it is, how much it moves people and grabs people's attention.I mean, one of the activist groups I talked about is this group called Sky Truth, which uses aerial imagery to sort of like to get purchase on illegal forms of extraction or the damages of extraction, they were really important during the Deepwater Horizon spill. And in seeing how the government was - and BP were - under reporting, the extent of the spill. So there are all these things that the aerial vantage point can really do to, you know, hold people to account to see what's really, what is happening on the ground. So these artists and activists, they acknowledge that. They don't want to say like, well, the aerial is - I think a term I use is like, they don't want to, they know they can't “purify” the aerial of its problems. But they want to still use it at the same time.And so they deploy it in this way that's very, I talked about as being very self-referential. So instead of thinking of the aerial as like a clear window on to the world. They show what the smudges are, I guess, on that window. So how the aerial perspectives are deeply tied to military histories, they're often a privileged perspective that's owned or controlled by government and corporate partnerships. It's also - the technologies that give one purchase on from the air, or from space, have their own histories of militarization, corporate control, colonial control. And they use these tools and at the same time, recognize those histories.And those histories are sort of like reminders that this is not an objective perspective, right? That there's so many interested parties, or forms of oppression and manipulation that go along with those perspectives. So, the aerial, it's really important to talk about it. Because it's not something we want to get rid of, or not use if we are environmentalists, or environmental artists. But it's certainly something you want to be aware of, just what its histories are, what its uses have been and how those really travel with the technology whenever you're using them.John FiegeYeah, definitely. And I love this idea of co-opting the tools for beneficial reasons. But at the same time, it makes me think of that famous Audre Lorde declaration that “the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”Heather HouserI mean, that term “master,” right, evokes slavery, it evokes patriarchy, it evokes a lot of a lot of things, I think, for Lorde. And for my study certainly evokes, especially colonial histories. But it also - just this general desire for mastery that often is - comes along with the scientific enterprise or thinking about solutions to environmental problems. So that that phrase, or you know, that quote, was certainly evocative and sort of traveling with me. And I do think I mean, there are some who would say absolutely, like, she's, she's right, right, you do not use the thing. Like, if you're an artist, for example, you do not use a form, you don't use a medium, you don't use a tool or an instrument that is so tainted by, you know, the very thing that you want to fight against. But I think that's quite hard.John FiegeI think it also taps into this, this plague of purity. I think that infects a lot of progressive movements, where you know, this assessment of any particular thing or object or perspective - “Is it pure? Is it not pure?” And if it's not pure, we have to stay away from it. And that's a really complicated and difficult way to assess the world. And it's self-delusional in a lot of ways.Heather HouserYeah. And I think of what, at what scale are we talking of the tool? Like, for example, the novel, right? I mean, you have something like, the novel, or poetry, or documentary film. But then, you know, you get more granular, and you might say, like, the sonnet, or the realist novel, or - I know less about documentary film, so I'm not gonna have as good examples here - but so, sort of like an interview based or-John FiegeObservational.Heather HouserRight. So you know, you also when you're thinking about tools, I think they're - and now like maybe deviating a bit from what Lorde was talking about, but thinking about the representational and the aesthetic sphere, you know, there's, I think, a lot of different levels at which you can think about that. That, you know, do you want to say like the tool of the novel or the tool of poetry, the tool of documentary or photography is sort of tainted for some reason. So you avoid it entirely? Or do you think about some of the more particular forms that you want to avoid or in fact, like, manipulate and call attention to, be really self-reflexive about the problems with them as you try to reorient them? And that was what you know, I argue, activists and artists.So, I mentioned Sky Truth as an activist group using the satellite imagery, in a very self-reflexive way that calls attention to the limits of the technology itself. But then I also look at a photographer named Fazal Shaikh, who takes aerial, so not satellite, but aerial photography of the Negev desert in Israel, thinking about the colonial oppression and manipulation of the environment in that region. I mean, he's actually interested in the displacement of Bedouin peoples. And, that I mean, he is certainly using aerial photography. He's using photography itself and acknowledges, through his use of angle - he takes an oblique angle.And the way he uses texture, and shows texture, and the layering of these pieces, as a way to sort of thwart our sense of visibility and transparency. You know, if we think of the, often the aerial and the satellite image as offering this window, or like offering an objective or transparent direct view of something, he's sort of using that tool of the aerial, to show how it is incomplete, but certainly shows us a lot of things at the same time. And then going back to your point about knowledge versus feeling, like evoking a lot of feeling in that practice too.John FiegeRight, right. And back to this idea of Sky Truth versus ground truth, you know, Fazal Shaikh's, a vast majority of his work is his portrait photography, of, you know, refugees and displaced people. So, yes, he's bringing in that element ofSky Truth. But, you know, the vast majority of the work he's doing is ground truth. So there's something about contextualizing all these tools with other tools that can make them, I think, more meaningful, less problematic, less tied to an oppressive history.Heather HouserYes. And he writes that, his work for it's called The Erasure Trilogy, this photographic project that does have, yeah, portraiture as well as aerial photography. He then collaborated with Eyal Weizman, who's an architectural theorist and known for what's called forensic architecture in the human rights domain. And they collaborated on this book called Conflict Shoreline, which incorporates the photographs.But then they talk about how they are constantly moving between the ground and the air. So you know, the aerial leads back to the ground, the ground leads to the aerial or even the subterranean and so that it is this constant moving between positions and that's something I also argue for and demonstrate and that part of the book that it's an argument for a multiplicity of perspectives, rather than sort of the “perfect” or the “objective” perspective.John FiegeRight, right. So, in Infowhelm, you talk about the new natural history. These are artworks, as you say, that speak the same tongue as Western natural history, but tell a story of ecological deficit. Can you talk about why these works interest you?Heather Houser Yeah, so that was a section of the book that really arose from just being a reader and a watcher or looker-at-er of, of environmental, art and literature. So I started to notice that a lot of contemporary writers - so those writing, and artists producing work, in the last 20 to 30 years - were harking back to these traditions of natural history. And so those traditions, I mean, we know often, many of us probably know, or have been to natural history museums. And it's this practice of classifying the natural world, naming it, putting it into categories, displaying it.And so things like if you've heard of Linnaeus - very famous person, naturalist who created the system of binomial nomenclature for naming plants and animals. All of these practices of basically ordering and classifying the natural world that arose during the Enlightenment period in Europe, and then in America. And these were like responses to like, greater access to the variety of things on the planet because of colonial expeditions and endeavors. So it's like, oh, you know, you're in Latin America, for example, and suddenly, there are all these new plants, animals, and of course, peoples, because the naturalist enterprise applies to peoples as well in this period. And so it's, it's a way of responding to that abundance by ordering it. A way of understanding it and sort of containing it.Now, there's always slippage out of that container that are really fascinating, as well. So artists today, were like, referring back to and reproducing those practices. So for example, you might have a poet who - I write about this poet, Juliana Spahr, who has a poem in which, interspersed within the lines, are the names of species that are on the endangered and threatened list of species for New York. And so they are, these artists are using those techniques of representation, and classification or ordering, but as a way to think through a loss of environmental abundance. So whether it's extinction, or deforestation or radical change, changes to the land through mining or dams, things like that.So they use those techniques, but as a way to get purchase on what is happening today. And to really think through the histories of enlightenment thought and colonialism that have produced the environmental degradation happening today.John Fiege You wrote an article for Yes magazine that explores the question of population control, and limiting the number of children we have as an approach to addressing the climate crisis. And you discuss how readily calls for reproductive limits touch what you call “the third rails of modern environmentalism: racism, eugenics, xenophobia, and even death dealing.” For you, what does it look like to deal appropriately with the question of population control outside of the racist and xenophobic history of those things in the environmental movement? Or maybe, how can we acknowledge or address the racist and xenophobic elements, past or present, of the environmental movement while still confronting the difficult question of reducing our global population?Heather HouserSo, that piece is actually part of a new thing I'm starting, but actually one where I don't know the answer to that question, and don't even know how to bring these two conversations together - if they should be. Because I mean, one of the things is not to say “population control.” So you know, controlling population has, at least in the environmental context, in the context of global development, colonialism, it's always been about controlling certain populations, it's been about advancing white supremacy and often, it's been about reducing the fertility, or - of people who have disabilities.So really, like the whole, and I'm not the first to say this, there are a lot of people have talked about, like the very phrase “population control” can't but evoke all of that. And so I say, a lot of people have talked about it, but I think that is not something like we all talk about. And so it's important to, to acknowledge that and, and that history is very tied up in environmentalism, both past like reaching back to the 19th century and further, and more present. Thinking that, you know, the earth has limits, or certain ecosystems have limits, and therefore, we need to prevent people from coming into those spaces or limit the number of people reproducing in those spaces to preserve them. But again, that is always about some people, some communities, some races, some types of people being preserved at the expense of others. And so that whole, like, “population control” is just like tainted.John FiegeRight.Heather HouserSo the question though, is, there are a lot of people who think about the relationship between their own reproduction, and the fate of the environment. And this can be everything from “I look around me, and things don't look good, so why should I bring another being into a world that is so shattered? And whose future I don't know.” But then there are some people who think about, again, going back to causality like, “well, if I put another person on this planet, will they be, you know, consuming more resources, emitting more carbon dioxide, will I just be contributing even more to the problems that we're facing?”And then there's certainly like other, other ways people think about this relationship between the environment and reproduction. And that can include actually, you know, populations who have experienced genocide, or near-genocide, or whose ability to thrive on an environment and ability to reproduce have been significantly harmed. And so, in that case, like having children can be a response to that in the affirmative. You know, sort of creating, shoring up those traditions, creating that sense of connection between place, and community.So I think, for me, if I continue to think about this, that framing of reproductive justice is, is how I would think about it. And so that's not about you know, deciding there's a limited capacity on the earth, and we need to stick to those limits by curtailing reproduction, but really thinking about the varieties of responses to having children. But also forming different kinds of family or kinship relationships in response to environmental degradation, and particularly climate crisis. Because that reproductive justice framework is much more about thinking about people's bodily self-determination. Thinking about that there is no one “right family,” there is no one “right'' (so called) number of people that we're seeking, but really curating the conditions for thriving for the widest variety of people and families.John FiegeYeah, well, I see how connected it is to your other work in this sense of looking at something that is very tainted from the past, you know, whether it be aerial photography, or classification, you know, natural history and classification and, and interrogating that. Do we need to reject that because it's tainted? Or do we need to, to, you know, reorient it and, and use it in a different way, with an awareness of, you know, how problematic it's been in the past?And one element of your essay that jumps out at me, is your note about Project Drawdown, where they say, you know, two of the most effective things we can do to deal with the climate crisis globally are to provide family planning universally, and to increase education of girls. And those two things, you know, shift much more towards the rights of women rather than the control of women, which is so much of what the history of population control has been. Have you thought about it in those terms?Heather HouserThe way I thought of the continuity of this work from past work was, or one way, was actually probably more at a sort of, like, methodological level - to be nerdy about it - which is, you know, my work in Ecosickness, really venturing into medical discourse, the medical humanities, as it's called, and then also my, my interest in environmental issues. So I sort of saw it as like a return to some of those confluences of like, the medical and the environmental, the bodily.But I can see like, I like, I like this continuity you're finding between like, what are, you know, these legacies of colonialism, of the enlightenment, of racism, enslavement, like, they, how they really travel in environmental, scientific and environmentalist discourse in ways that don't, some of us can to easily forget, or like think that it's a part of the past or, or just discard entirely. So yeah, yeah. I like how you're drawing that connection. It's often other people who see connections that you cannot see.John FiegeYeah, well, it's actually it's through our conversation today that I connected that actually, which is interesting. And I'm going to step back to Infowhelm for one second. But I wanted to ask you just to see what your first thought was. So I love this term, you use the ‘coming of mind plot', which is a play off of the ‘coming of age plot'. Can you tell me what is a ‘coming of mind plot' and how does it relate to climate Infowhelm?Heather HouserYeah, the coming of age novel or movie is something quite familiar, right? Like, you have a young person, usually someone at the cusp of adolescence or in adolescence, like coming, coming of age, entering into maturity and all of the struggles there. And, you know, often it's about like integrating into society or not. Or resisting that. And so that is kind of a familiar trope or genre and so many different narratives.And I was interested in how there were some climate narratives where - often adults - who is having to, like come to what sort of an environmental maturation or not, you know, like, suddenly comes to have to confront the, the facts, the data of climate crisis. And one of the examples of that, like, the reason, the texts that made me come up with this idea was Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, her novel.And in that case, it's a woman, the protagonist, is not versed in any real environmental or climate knowledge. But there's this migration of butterflies that erroneously lands in her part of Tennessee. And suddenly, she's starting to think about the facts, the existence of climate crisis. But this information comes into conflict with many aspects of her social life, religion, her socio-economic position, her gender, all of these things. And so yeah, it's this confrontation and integration into a different, like, knowledge reality, and the conflicts that happen, and what results from that.John FiegeSo I wanted to go back to where we started, with you delving into dance as a child in order to make you “other” than who you are and where you come from. I wonder what that project to remake yourself has led to, and how it informs your view of your relationship to the rest of nature in our collective environmental predicament now. I know that's a huge question. But I just wanted you to kind of think through that, that broad sweep of time to see if you had any thoughts about it.Heather HouserI think one, well, I guess starting from the more personal side of things. Well, I was a good student as a kid, but nothing like exceptional. So, like the intellectual part of myself, I think I developed more after I was kind of forced to see dance as not my future in terms of a profession. And there was a certain, I think, just mean, that was a sad moment for me. And sometimes I still question that choice, even though, despite what I wrote or said. But there's, there was a certain opening up I think, like there was something also scary about thinking about being a dancer and how it takes up - it takes so much, it takes so much out of you. And it does that in the very young years of your life where you're committing to something.John FiegeIt can easily destroy you.Heather HouserAnd yeah, it destroys most, you know, especially ballet and some of these intense - well, really all of it. But like, it does have its damages for sure. And letting go of that was also sort of like, well, things can develop over time, right? Like, I don't have to know at fourteen what I want to do and commit to it so wholeheartedly, and that sort of like, I mean, I say this to people and that they're like, that's bananas, because like, how much commitment does it take to become, you know, get your PhD and become a professor? And like, yeah, absolutely.But there was a lot of, like, I didn't know what I wanted to really study when I got to grad school, and I, I discovered it along the way. And I think that receptivity is really important to me and thinking about not only like my relationship to the world around me, like being out there and being receptive to smells, and sights and sounds and tastes, sometimes I guess. But just also being receptive to, you know, different positions on environmental issues. Not being dogmatic, not seeking purity. Like, listening and, and learning a lot rather than, you know, being so fixed in one's understanding. I don't know. I feel like, that's very important for environmental conversations today, even though I have strong opinions and you know, fall on an ideological side and political side.John FiegeAnd do you still dance?Heather HouserI do. I come into and out of it a lot more than I used to. And so I really, I stopped in college, more or less. And then I came back to it really wholeheartedly for about, you know, 10 years, and had this amazing teacher and, and community when I lived in San Francisco. And one of the upsides of the pandemic - which I know, like, we're sick of that phrase just as much as all others - is, I'm able to take ballet classes with my most beloved teacher from my San Francisco days. And, you know, granted from my living room, which is not the way I would prefer to dance. It's not a very big living room. But it's sort of clicked in my brain like, oh, well, they're probably offering classes I could take from my living room.John FiegeWell, the other thing that clicks in your mind is “this isn't ending anytime soon.”Heather HouserWell, that's true. Like, I did think about the virtual dance class way at the beginning. And then I was like, “I don't want to do that. I love to move. Like I love to take up space, like this is going to be pathetic and confining.” But then, as the months wore on, I was like, well.John FiegeSo, almost to the end here. I've one more kind of big question for you. Why does our struggle to create a more just and ecologically sustainable society need the environmental humanities?Heather HouserWell take the environmental humanities broadly, which is like thinking about those cultural, emotional, historical relationships to the environment. I mean, I don't see how you could think otherwise. Right? Like, it's just there's no way. I mean, I'll take an example of like, you know, conversations about climate reparations, that is like, do certain countries or community you know, states even - do they owe other nations or communities compensation for the damage that those communities are facing? That question, I mean, there's an economic way of thinking about it. There's a sort of quantitative, empirical way of thinking about it like, well, what are the actual harms to those people? Whether it be health or loss of land or livelihood. Certainly there are those perspectives on it.But so much of this is going to be thinking about the history of those relationships between countries or communities, thinking about just what the whole idea of reparations signifies for people. Like in the US, certainly means something different with the legacy of enslavement than it might in another country that doesn't have that same legacy. Those are all things that you just can't really approach without - whether you call it the environmental humanities, like that's what us professors call ourselves, right. But, you know, you might not have that label for yourself, but those kinds of perspectives are just so essential for really any environmental decision or or relationship that we're thinking about today.John FiegeRight, right. I feel like, you know, it's, it's this complicated thing sometimes to hold where we hear these calls for following the science, which I totally agree with. But I think a lot of what your work is pointing out is: yes, we need to follow the science, but it also needs to be in the context of, of all this other stuff, so that we can make meaning of it, and that we can understand what to do with it.Heather HouserAbsolutely. In the very early days of the Infowhelm project, I had, you know, wrote, wrote an early chapter, and someone said, like, you know, this could sound like you're questioning science, you know, fueling a denialist position, or a skeptical position. And that's why I say at many points in the book, like, this is about finding those complementarities; finding, you know, I borrow from a science studies scholar, S

When Randa Jarrar started her MFA program, she thought she was taking the next step on the path to success. That is until her professor, Leslie Marmon Silko, told her to drop out.

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that touches society on myriad levels, nuclear technology has typically been discussed in a limited, top-down fashion that clusters around powerful men. In Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex (U Minnesota Press, 2020), Jessica Hurley turns this conventional wisdom on its head, offering a new approach that focuses on neglected authors and Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American perspectives. Exchanging the usual white, male “nuclear canon” for authors that include James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ruth Ozeki, Infrastructures of Apocalypse delivers a fresh literary history of post-1945 America that focuses on apocalypse from below. Here Hurley critiques the racialized urban spaces of civil defense and reads nuclear waste as a colonial weapon. Uniting these diverse lines of inquiry is Hurley's belief that apocalyptic thinking is not the opposite of engagement but rather a productive way of imagining radically new forms of engagement. Infrastructures of Apocalypse offers futurelessness as a place from which we can construct a livable world. It fills a blind spot in scholarship on American literature of the nuclear age, while also offering provocative, surprising new readings of such well-known works as Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, and Angels in America. Infrastructures of Apocalypse is a revelation for readers interested in nuclear issues, decolonial literature, speculative fiction, and American studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Kim and Laura return to their ongoing conversation on futurity with Sebastian, who talks with them about Indigenous time and conceptions of the future. Some cool links for further inquiry: Incident at Restigouche: https://www.nfb.ca/film/incident_at_restigouche/ The Cave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHZsdgfo11w&t=3s File Under Miscellaneous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SEyAs-FSHQ&t=360s The 6th World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f4Jm0y_iLk Lindsey Catherine Cornum, “The Creation Story is a Spaceship: Indigenous Futurism and Decolonial Deep Space”: http://www.vozavoz.ca/feature/lindsay-catherine-cornum Grace L. Dillon (ed.), Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction: https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/walking-the-clouds N.K. Jemisin, “How Long 'Til Black Future Month?”: https://nkjemisin.com/2013/09/how-long-til-black-future-month/ Mark Rifkin, Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination: https://www.dukeupress.edu/beyond-settler-time Leslie Marmon Silko, “Long time ago”: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx3b2xmZWttaHN8Z3g6NTg2MTk3YWU0NmUwYjVjNQ Kali Simmons, “Reorientations; or, An Indigenous Feminist Reflection on the Anthropocene”: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/717132/pdf?casa_token=9A_HWUnJtvAAAAAA:LWQmXYA0-HhA-gTz5MuF8UqIt6sNVlYwOoxDWPiNgXlV4Jg3PRoee8PZQgkUE0Oupc5k9Xwf5g Zoe Todd, “Indigenizing the Anthropocene”: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/3118244/7-Todd,-Zoe,-Indigenizing-the-Anthropocene.pdf Interview with Jeff Barnaby: https://www.vulture.com/2020/05/jeff-barnaby-is-worried-white-people-wont-get-blood-quantum.html Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medialiteratepodcast/ Music credit: Fawn Wood

This week, Kolton (https://paintedmesas.wordpress.com/) and I, Imogen Arate (https://poetsandmuses.com/imogen-arate/), discuss our respective poems, "The (end) call" and "Departure," and endings. You can also follow Kolton on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/kolton.nephew/ Links to the topics we touched on: 1. List of Diné/Navajo Clans: https://dictionary.nihizaad.com/list-of-navajo-clans/ 2. Leslie Marmon Silko: https://www.learner.org/series/american-passages-a-literary-survey/native-voices-video/leslie-marmon-silko-b-1948/ 3. Death from heartbreak: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20354617 Photo provided by Kolton Nephew. #Poetrypodcasts #PoetsandMuses #ImogenArate #KoltonNephew #Theendcall #Departure #endings #DinéNavajoPoet #ManyGoatsClan #Tł'ízíŁání #HoneyCombedClan #TséŃjíkiní #RedRunningIntotheWaterClan #Táchii'nii #TobaccoClan #Nát'ohDine'é #UniversityofSouthernCalifornia #USC #JournalismStudent #MinorinEnglish #DogLover #writer #DidntFeelaPlaceinPoetry #ActivePerson #runner #fromNewMexico #SouthWestSunsets #TranslateCulturalBeliefsintoWriting #LeslieMarmonSilko #LagunaPuebloWriter #JoyHarjo #LauraTohe #JakeSkeets #SherwinBitsui #SareyaTaylor #heartbreak #Superman #CaptainAmerica #reblanceoneself #RandBMusic #JhenéAiko #SummerWalker #deathoflovedone #FourChamberPress #JakeFriedman #Thesaurus

In this world, for women of color and Black women, we are faced with so much. Was that a micro-aggression? Did you mean harm when you complimented me? What did you intend by singling me out? Naomi Samuel, a Management PhD Student at the University of Texas at Arlington who id passionate about storytelling, raising awareness of natural hair discrimination, helping students discover their personal narratives, and writing theory to develop DE&I thought leadership, and I delve into these and other questions as we discuss our journeys as Black women. Check out this week's episode for more. This week's Guest is Naomi Samuel. Naomi Samuel is a Dallas native, born and raised in Garland, Texas, but considers Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to be her second home. Or really, where her heart resides. She's currently a Management PhD Student at The University of Texas at Arlington. Before this, she worked in management consulting after graduating from Southern Methodist University in 2019 with degrees in Marketing & English. She's been advocating for diversity and writing poetry since she was a child. As an interdisciplinary graduate, she strongly believes that at the intersect of multiple domains of knowledge, exists new forms of practice to make the world more equitable for historically disenfranchised groups. She's particularly interested in designing creative interventions to increase racial equity in the workplace. She's been an outspoken advocate of ending natural hair discrimination via #TheCROWNAct; and is currently a fellow of The CROWN Campaign, an interdisciplinary, grassroots effort to advance federal policy prohibiting natural hair discrimination. She loves leading and holding space to have conversations around what innovation is necessary to make the world more inclusive and reduce group-based discrimination and harms. Ways to Connect Website: https://naomiwrote.com/ LinkedIn: Naomi Samuel | LinkedIn Email is also naomisamuelbba@gmail.com Resources Poet, Natalie Diez https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/natalie-diaz Author of Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leslie-marmon-silko Presumed Incompetent WATCH + LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE + SHARE Let's #Soar and #ElevateWOCVoices #IntimateConversationWOC #NAHM

Hello, dear friends!It's here! Episode One/Season One of the Austen Connection podcast. You can press play and listen or stream from any device, and it's also available (we hope) on Apple podcasts. Enjoy, and if you like it, share with your Janeite and bookish friends. Thank you for being here and joining this conversation! One of the most exciting things about Jane Austen is how her stories travel - across continents, across cultures, across time. Like her spiritual brother Shakespeare, her stories contain a universality and also a lot of fun of the sort that works like a passport across these boundaries - and perhaps no one else but Shakespeare comes so close to providing us with stories that connect - if you will - so strongly today. And one thing that a lot of us find exciting, as so many of us are questioning and exploring issues of race and inclusivity in all of our cultures - is how this author who is important to us is also important to so many of our sisters and brothers across continents and cultures. It's just downright exciting.So it's a thrill to share with you a conversation that I had with the author of a book that happens to be a favorite Jane Austen retelling of a lot of Janeites, and scholars, and readers alike: Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable: A Novel.Unmarriageable tells the story of heroine Alysba, or Alys, Binat and the Binat sisters, who live in Pakistan, teach at an English school, and avoid getting married - that is until the arrogant, wealthy and handsome Darsee comes along and shakes things up. I think you know how this is going to go.  When I reached Kamal she was visiting Pakistan, the place of her birth. Growing up, she also spent time in England, Saudi Arabia and currently lives in Georgia. But in this conversation you could hear Pakistan - its streets and soundscapes - in the background. Kamal and I spoke about why Mansfield Park is her favorite novel, how religious communities that teach Purity, from conservative Islam to Evangelical Christianity, make ideal contemporary settings for Jane Austen's themes, and why she says that ever since she first read Pride and Prejudice at the age of 16 she's always known that Jane Austen was Pakistani. This is the first Austen Connection podcast episode - you can listen here and subscribe to the podcast on Apple. Meanwhile, if you prefer words to sounds, here are edited excerpts from our conversation. Enjoy! -------------------------------Plain Jane:Let me start with a really simple question: When did you first encounter the novels of Jane Austen? When and where and how have Austen and her stories shaped your life ever since?Soniah Kamal: I was first given Pride and Prejudice when I was, I think, around 12, 13, 14 ... by an aunt of mine. And what she gave me was, this was I believe, around the ‘70s. And she gave me a really beautiful red leather-bound copy with gold lettering on it. And I opened it up, and I read the first sentence, which is, you know, “It's a truth universally acknowledged …” etc, etc. And I promptly shut the book and said, “OK, I'm not reading that.” … And I remember thinking, “I don't know what this is, what I just read, I'm not reading this book.” And then I think I was 16 when I finally opened the novel, and I like to joke It must have been a rainy day. But I don't know why I opened it. I started to read it, and I read it cover to cover. And it was a quintessentially Pakistani novel. I mean …  it could have been set in Pakistan completely. I mean, Jane Austen didn't know she was Pakistani, and I actually started calling her Jane Khala in my mind - Khala means maternal aunt ... I just loved the novel. And I actually grew up in Saudi Arabia for a while and went to an international school there. And my library had books from the US and the UK … But the one thing that I never could find back then was a book written in English but set in Pakistan, and English is my first language. English is the official language of Pakistan, it became so in 1947, even though we know the origins of it are not that delightful. But reading Jane Austen at that [time] at 16 … what I started to do, in a lot of my reading was flipped settings and stuff. So like bonnets would turn into buttas, sandwiches would turn into scones and stuff. So when I read Austen at 16, it just seemed, you know, it didn't seem other … Which is why I say that it was a quintessentially Pakistani novel. My brain was already doing that, you know … So just seeing the dialogue, the scenarios, the characters, the concerns, the thematic material. And it's all very relevant to today. Plain JaneAnd that is what we do when we're reading novels. We're using our imaginations to recreate our own world, which is what's so powerful about it. So funny to think about a young Soniah Kamal reading that first sentence that we love, “It is a truth universally acknowledged …” I have some teens in my life, and they have emptied my shelves of Jane Austen, because I press Jane Austen on them. But the thing I'm very careful to say, and you're reminding me, as I always say, “She's sarcastic!” Soniah Kamal I think maybe that's what fascinated me, or at least definitely caught me was that … Yes, it's funny. But the humor is … sarcasm, you know, even the irony and sarcasm are closely related. And I think what I had sort of done to be able to survive myself in the society that I found myself living in, was sarcasm also. So Austen, she was just perfect for me. Her wit, her quips, her social insights. But it wasn't just that she had social insights. ... And she has such an astute understanding of characters, of people. She doesn't mock people; she mocks institutions. And her irony and sarcasm are her medium - of her humor … and I really, really related to that. I really love that. But she wasn't making fun of people. She was making fun of the institutions and the ideas that had given birth to these people. Plain JaneLet's tackle that. I mean, she's not just funny, not slapstick funny, as you say, right? She's wickedly funny because she's taking on these incredible institutions. And she's demanding to be listened to. … Soniah, you tackle a lot of themes in the first few pages of Unmarriageable - I could see that you were tackling so many of the themes that people don't actually associate with Austen: Things like you've just mentioned, like class oppression, gender oppression, hypocrisy of society, things that were not only annoying to women in the Regency era, and in Jane Austen's world, but are dangerous - and are still dangerous today. And really, it's all right there in Unmarriageable in the first few pages. So tell me about how conscious this was for you. Soniah Kamal It was very, very conscious. In fact, what I wanted to do with the first chapter was set up all the thematic material that I felt was in Austen, as well as in Unmarriageable. And Unmarriageable works on two levels. It's a completely stand-alone novel. So if you know nothing about Jane Austen or not coming from Pride and Prejudice, it's still a stand-alone novel in its own right. However, it's also an homage to Pride and Prejudice. I mean, it's a postcolonial parallel retelling, and parallel because it follows the original plot and all the characters are there. And it's a postcolonial retelling because I was trying to remap the linguistic history of British Empire. So this was very much a project for me, rather than just something fun that I thought I would do, you know. And I was very intimidated by what I was setting out to do. I don't know if there's any parallel retelling actually out. I haven't come across one -I think this may well be the first one. But because I was taking on British Empire and postcolonialism also, that was intimidating. I was very intimidated by what I was setting out to do. I don't know if there's any parallel retelling actually out. I haven't come across one -I think this may well be the first one. But because I was taking on British Empire and postcolonialism also, that was intimidating. So on these two levels, I had to satisfy two different groups of readers which are polar opposite - coming from Austen, and not knowing Austen at all. And what I brought for the Austen readers though, what I definitely wanted to do was put easter eggs throughout the the narrative, and they're actually nods to all of her six completed novels as well as Lady Susan. And the very first line, my opening for Unmarriageable is a nod to Pride and Prejudice. And those rewrites, those reimaginings, retellings of her iconic first sentence, continue in the first chapter. But also my favorite Austen novel is actually Mansfield Park. And I think the opening for Mansfield Park is fantastic because it just encapsulates what traditionally, and for centuries, women's lives actually were, which was the ring that your finger wore ended up determining your life and the life of your children, your opportunities, your privileges, and Austen depicts that. … A lot of people don't like Mansfield Park. Like when I say it's my favorite, sometimes I get very odd looks, like, “What's wrong with you?” ...Plain JaneYeah, I'm so with you. And that's the one that I tend to press on my teenagers because I say, “Look, this is about a group of young people stuck in a house together.”Soniah KamalYou know, yes. Interesting. It's so interesting, I've never really thought of it like that. …I mean, the beginning, the opening of Mansfield Park are three sisters. And because of who they end up married to - one of them, you know, lies about on the sofa all day long with her dog; the other one needs to suck up to the owner of the mansion; and the third one has to send her kids away because she can't afford their upbringing. And they've all grown up in the same environment. They're sisters; they've come from the same family; but look at what happened to their life, just by dint of who they ended up getting married to. I think the opening for Mansfield Park is fantastic because it just encapsulates what traditionally, and for centuries, women's lives actually were, which was the ring that your finger wore ended up determining your life and the life of your children, your opportunities, your privileges …And in a lot of traditional cultures, that is still the case. You know, and I'm coming from Pakistan where I see this - saw this then, see this today. And I think what I absolutely loved in [Mansfield Park], it was the first time that I had read a novel where family relationships - in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, etc. … are what Austen really picks apart .. the people visiting and … what is it “one and 20 families” and stuff. But in Mansfield Park, like you said, she keeps this group of people in the house. And what she picks apart are relatives and family relationships and what family means. I think I fell in love with that novel because it is by far one of the realest novels … the most honest novels I have still read about what it means to be and to belong to family. You know, just because .. people are your cousins, just because they're your mother, sisters… it doesn't mean anything. They can still be unkind and cruel. And I think Austen is so amazing for what she's done with Mansfield Park. Plain Jane…And you know everything you were saying Soniah, makes me realize I think a lot of people mistakenly sort of, you know … all of our feminist colleagues and friends, I think sometimes might have the question, “What's relevant about Jane Austen?” And I think maybe that's because with the [screen] adaptations, you think that these are novels about marriage. But really, it's about the precarity of women, and that marriage was the option. Marriage was so important for the reasons you're saying.Soniah KamalI mean, yeah, in Regency England and Austen's time, marriage was the only thing women of a certain class would do. I mean, if you came from the servant classes, you could perhaps gain employment as a cook as a maid, etc. But from Austen's own class, you couldn't do that, the only option you had was to become a governess … So you're very in-between; you were neither here nor there. And Austen doesn't seem to be too happy about that. So Regency England was harsh on women… Plain Jane … and harsh on Jane Austen!Soniah KamalRight but she chose those for herself insofar as she said no to Harris Bigg-Wither. … So it's really interesting to see that off the page [and] on the page. … I think that the worst thing per se was once you got married, any property you brought, your kids, everything - you yourself - belonged to your husband. You were their property. So … saying Yes to someone wasn't just a question of, “Oh, are we going to get along and have lovely strolls …”  It was, if you didn't get along with this person, or if he was cruel or horrible, you were in a bad position as a woman. And the fact is, as we know, with a lot of relationships, things don't stay static; people change. So women, the precariousness of a woman's position in her home, or in her husband's heart, or wherever the hell, in Regency England, was not a fun place to be at all. Because they had no power. They lacked complete agency per se.Plain Jane But the thing that I love, that you mentioned, [is] that Fanny and Eliza and Austen's characters are very astute, and I think that's really, really important in these characters - They're judging us. People are judging each other constantly. And the biggest, and harshest judges are Austen's leading ladies and leading men. They are the smartest people in the room. And you really capture this and I feel like, in a way, Austen, I feel like Pride and Prejudice upends Regency values. … And you have your characters [in Unmarriageable], Alys and Darsee, are the smartest people in the room. They're the judgiest two people in the room, and they judge each other. And there's always this opposition. But that's how in these precarious positions women survive, is by being excellent judges of character and of their situations, and also being honest. Do you find that? Soniah Kamal.... Well first, I think it's interesting that you said, you know about pre-judging and everything, because the thing is Pride and Prejudice is prejudice.  … When you break the word apart, it's pre-judge. ...You're pre-judging everyone. And that's exactly what Elizabeth does. But you know, I find, I think for me, Sense and Sensibility, Lucy Steele, the Steele sisters, but especially Lucy - I personally think out of all of her novels, Lucy is the most astute in many ways ...Plain Jane… and you're reminding me while I'm over simplifying it, in many ways, for brevity, really, there's so many nuances to her characters. Let me ask you a little bit about the characters in Unmarriageable. I love it that, you know, there's always this opposition between the leading man and the heroine that we know need to end up together. And so much suspense is created out of that. And there's so much opposition between them, but at the same time, the reader is allowed to see things that they might have in common. And all of this is in Unmarriageable as well. But it's interesting, what you choose to make Darsee and Alys understand about each other, is there's a sort of global citizenship, the fact that they've had this. And then they've had this postcolonial education .... Very English-first, in so many ways. And Darsee says something very interesting. He says, “We've both been educated on the ‘literature of others.'”What did you mean by having Darsee say this and having this as being the thing that the two-people-about-to-fall-in-love have in common?Soniah Kamal My own background came into my mind. I was like, “OK, you know, they're third culture kids, and they've grown up overseas. They've gone to international schools, and this is what they'll connect over.”And I think partly it wasn't just the ease of knowing this world because I come from it, but also because it was very important for me in the landscape of Unmarriageable. Because Unmarriageable is very much an East-West, East-and-West-come-together book. … You know, there's a line in one of Kipling's poems, where he says, you know, “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” I think in Unmarriageable they definitely do, and very purposefully, because of British Empire. In fact, one of my epigraphs is by Thomas Babington Macaulay ... from his 1835 speech to British Parliament in which he's recommending that English replace all the indigenous languages as the official language in Empire. And that is what ended up happening, and therefore English became the language of privilege, power, opportunity. So, because English became this major, important language, everyone aspired to learn it. The twist comes when, in 1947, British Empire left the Indian subcontinent and Pakistan and India became sovereign countries. Pakistan retained English and declared it as one of its official languages. So English is very much a Pakistani language. However, it happens to be one of the only languages, it's actually the only language I can speak fluently for the most part. …  And I did not know the origins of this language that was coming out of my mouth. I happened to come across Macauley's speech … doing some extra reading for myself. And it was really, it was really disturbing to see, to say the least, because as I say in my epigraph, what he wanted to do was create confused people who are brown in skin but white in sensibilities and basically create confusions ....Plain Jane Yes, and what you're saying - because I did read your epigraph as well, and I had a question for you - that must have been incredibly disturbing. And what he was talking about actually was education, right? You quote him as saying English is better worth knowing than Sanskrit or Arabic. So yeah, I think that's astounding and really needs to be pointed out - that this was creating, like you say, chaos, but also privilege - creating layers of privilege ... Soniah Kamal… Definitely. And we see that in contemporary Pakistan also, because one of the themes in Unmarriageable is the class divide between those who come from an English-fluent, English-language background with … what is considered proper accents … versus those who are not. But the thing is, reading that, reading [Macauley's] essay, reading the origins of this, it was, I mean, ...disturbing is an understatement. And I think for the longest time, I couldn't read that quote out loud without just tearing up. But the fact is that English is the official language in Pakistan, and I wanted to fuse the language that is mine and the culture that is mine. And really, a lot of Unmarriagable came from that desire. And actually a professor of mine at Seattle University called Unmarriageable Macauley's worst nightmare. And I don't know if there can ever be a compliment to top that. Because as British subjects, even postcolonial, you were supposed to look up to everything white and British. … And I guess I did flip the narrative on that one, which was the reason for writing it.Plain Jane And, you know, Darsee and Alys in Unmarriageable are big readers, and your novel is really a celebration of books. And it's a celebration of the English writers that you and Darsee will have grown up with, but also a celebration of Indian and Pakistani writers. As you mentioned to Callie Crossley on WGBH, you hear often that people are encountering and discovering Jane Austen through Unmarriageable and the first time somebody said, “Oh, I loved Unmarriageable, I'm going to check out Jane Austen,” you burst into tears!Soniah Kamal … This is where with empire and countries who have privilege and neocolonialism … what happens is that whereas empire and those of us who are brought up on British literature are aware of Austen and Hardy and Dickens, etc. Someone who wants to flip that will not necessarily, I mean, the general public in certain countries will not be aware of the Pakistani writers and stuff. And in fact, I think Darsee, that's what I think Darsee says at one point, which is … “Will there ever be someone doing that actually?” And that's where power structure comes into play. And that's where sort of pop culture and soft power and dominance, domination happens. And that's exactly what Macaulay meant when he meant “brown in skin, but white sensibilities,” which is that these people will grow up on everything British - British literature … Darsee saying “literature of others.” The fact is, I have grown up on British literature and it's very much mine too. But it was supposed to other me from myself. Because having been brought up in English I was not able to really read things set within the culture itself, which is why I had this burning desire to to read a piece of literature which I'd grown up with, within my own cultural paradigm. The fact is, I have grown up on British literature and it's very much mine too. But it was supposed to other me from myself.So all of this comes into play - just identity politics, and who gets to decide how they're going to change people's identities. All the novels and all the short stories that I've mentioned in Unmarriageable reflect the theme of Unmarriageable and the theme of identity. I think the one that encapsulates it the best for me is the Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko. I think Alys makes her students read her short story, “Lullaby.” “Lullaby” is about children who are taken from Native American tribes by white settlers who had come in and sent [them] to boarding schools, and they were not allowed to speak their tribal languages. They were not allowed to wear their native tribal dress. I believe they had to cut their hair. They did exactly what Macaulay tried to do, which is “brown in skin, but white in sensibility.”And Silko's story is so beautiful, because she talks about what happens when you strip away someone's native identity and try to make them other, and what you do to their souls. ...I wanted to do something which fused this language which is mine, within the culture. So I wanted to do something “light and bright and sparkling” with it. Even though it's very, very heavy, and can be very troubling.Plain Jane It's, it's everything. And, you know, I love that you say Jane Austen is mine and Jane Austen belongs to everyone. You mentioned that someone said to you, Sir Thomas Macaulay would roll over in his grave … or it would be his worst nightmare.  But you know, Jane Austen would have celebrated it and loved it. So, you know, we have Jane Austen's permission. Soniah KamalI hope so. I hope so. … I think she would have chuckled.Plain Jane What would you like the Janeite community to keep in mind to make … the discussions about Jane Austen more inclusive? What should people keep in mind when reading and having these conversations?Soniah Kamal I think it comes down to the readers being aware of the space that Austen is writing in, and what she's writing. And for me, [the books] have always, with their thematic content … been universal across time and centuries. And, just as a writer, she has a certain modern way of writing. You know, she doesn't, unlike Edith Wharton, or unlike Dickens, she doesn't … preach. And she doesn't go off into long pages of descriptions and stuff. She's a very modern when it comes to pacing ...Plain Jane Interesting, so I hear what you're saying - that there's so much universality to pick up and to explore.Soniah Kamal There is, which is why I think with Janeites and with the Austen communities … Austen has a lot to offer readers from all communities and … anyone can read her and find something of worth and merit. Plain JaneYou know, you have managed to write, with Unmarriageable - you called it a parallel retelling - a scene-by-scene retelling, which is fascinating. In some ways, that's a challenge, just to show you can do this scene by scene, even though we are in Pakistan, for this story. And we are, you know, in the early 2000s, I think for most of the story. So we can go across centuries and continents, and still do a scene-by-scene retelling with all the right characters, including Wickham… in Pride and Prejudice. But you also introduced some fascinating [contemporary] things. You introduced some body image concepts, lots of talk about premarital sex, abortions, and also colorism ...I would love to hear you talk about these contemporary themes and also your experiences that also go into this very, very close retelling.Soniah Kamal I always meant to do a retelling because for me, like I said, this was a postcolonial writing back to empire. Remapping empire and its legacy. … So a scene-by-scene retelling is is very difficult because contemporary Pakistan is definitely not Regency England. And anyone who says that does not know what they're talking about as far as I'm concerned. Because in contemporary Pakistan women can get educated; … There are women across the board in all sorts of jobs; you can get a divorce, you're not stuck. You're literally not stuck, jobless. … Yes, there is a bit when it comes to morality, because Pakistan and Regency England still expect its women to be good. And you know, but I always think of it in terms of Evangelical Christianity, which also expected its women to be pure, you know ...Plain Jane Let me jump in there and say that I grew up in Evangelical Christianity, and … that is absolutely a contemporary parallel. And something relevant about Jane Austen's world. [And] it's relevant to my world in the 1980s and 1990s.Soniah Kamal Even today, even today! I mean, Pakistan very much has its own purity culture, where good girls are expected to, you know, uphold certain morals. And if you don't do that, you can get into big trouble. And so thematically, doing a parallel retelling for me was very easy, because the morality in which Austen's characters function is very much the morality even today in which Pakistani women are supposed to function. Or at least thrive the best. And if you don't, ... like me, if you're opinionated, if you talk back, if you ask things like I would ask my Dad, “Well, you know, what's wrong with smoking? If you can smoke? Why can't I? Why can guys go out at this time at night? And why can't I?” You know, just to give it just to give very teen-agey examples. So this material, I think, especially with more traditional societies and more religious societies, definitely, definitely resonates. —-Thank you for listening, friends! As always, talk back to us. Wherever you're reading from right now, how do Austen's stories connect with you? Let us know! Comment below, or write me at austenconnection@gmail.com, at @AustenConnect on Twitter, or austenconnection on Instagram. And if you're not yet part of the Austen Connection community, join us with a free subscription, to get every podcast episode and conversation dropped right into your inbox.If you liked this conversation, feel free to share it! Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Leslie Marmon Silko, Laguna Woman, Ceremony, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”, Storyteller, The Delicacy and Strength of Lace Rethinking ColumbusLaguna Bureau of Indian Affairs School, Albuquerque Indian School, University of New MexicoNational Endowment for the Humanities Discovery GrantUshttp://www.thebibliophiledailypodcast.carrd.cohttps://twitter.com/thebibliodailythebibliophiledailypodcast@gmail.comRoxiehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyAfdi8Qagiiu8uYaop7Qvwhttp://www.chaoticbibliophile.comhttp://instagram.com/chaoticbibliophilehttps://twitter.com/NewAllegroBeat

"The law has nothing to do with justice, and injustice can't be left unchallenged. So I decided to be a writer” – Leslie Marmon Silko, born this day in 1948

Welcome to the CodeX Cantina where our mission is to get more people talking about books! A great little piece on blending cultures. What did you think of the local Native American rituals and Catholicism in this story? Other Literature from Native American or Indigenous Authors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9wx3uwGDUc&list=PLHg_kbfrA7YAiawEORQYT5Af7Pngzb7Vx TABLE OF CONTENTS: 0:00 Introductions 0:22 Publication, Author, + Themes 1:24 Plot Summary 2:30 Analysis 14:14 Wrap Up and Ratings Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzdqkkUKpfRIbCXmiFvqxIw?sub_confirmation=1 ================================= Books or Stories Mentioned in this Video: Channels Mentioned in this Video: ================================= #LeslieMarmonSilko #TheMantoSendRainClouds Do you have a Short Story or Novel you'd think we'd like or would want to see us cover? Submit your entry here: https://forms.gle/41VvksZTKBsxUYQMA You can reach us on Social Media: ▶ The Literary Discourse Discord: https://discord.gg/2YyXPAdRUy ▶ http://instagram.com/thecodexcantina ▶ http://twitter.com/thecodexcantina ====Copyright Info==== Song: Infinite Artist: Valence Licensed to YouTube by: AEI (on behalf of NCS); Featherstone Music (publishing), and 1 Music Rights Societies Free Download/Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHoqD47gQG8 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thecodexcantina/support

Jenny speaks with author Bryan Washington about his new novel, Memorial, and also gets to know more about him as a reader. This bonus episode also contains information about a last-minute readalong, how to contribute to the best of the year episode, and what to expect for the rest of 2020.Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 205: Life and Time Subscribe to the podcast via this link: FeedburnerOr subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: SubscribeOr listen through TuneIn Or listen on Google Play Or listen via StitcherOr listen through Spotify New! Listen through Google Podcasts Books discussed:Memorial by Bryan WashingtonLot: Stories by Bryan Washington Other mentions:Nights when Nothing Happened by Simon HanLuster by Raven LeilaniPieces by Helen OyeyemiGingerbread by Helen OyeyemiBestiary by K-Ming ChangMy Brother's Husband by Gengoroh TagameBreasts & Eggs by Mieko KawakamiDubliners by James JoyceDaily Beast: Bryan Washington recommends 5 BooksPolar Vortex by Shani MootooBook CougarsCelestial Bodies by Jokha AlharthiAlmanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon SilkoReading Envy Readers on Goodreads - Readalong discussionRelated episodes:Episode 145 - Things Get Dark with Bianca EscalanteEpisode 175 - Reading on Impulse with Marion HillEpisode 196 - Miscommunication with Lindy   Stalk us online: Bryan Washington website Bryan on Twitter Jenny at GoodreadsJenny on TwitterJenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors, and less to Jeff Bezos. I only link to Amazon in cases where Bookshop.org does not carry a backlist title, which took place a few times for this list.

It’s past time for unveiling the truth in historical interpretation and the perfect moment for declaring a change of name for an old holiday.Music "Polonaise in G- Minor" by ChopinKeyboard Amy RosebushChalice Lighting Words Excerpt from Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit by Leslie Marmon Silko, of Laguna Pueblo, Mexican and Anglo-American heritageRead by Amy RosebushIntroit Strings by Stephen Downen, Keyboard by Amy RosebushMessage The Reverend Amy KindredSong "Love Knocks and Waits for Us to Hear" Words and Music by Daniel Charles Damon (From Singing the Journey, Copyright 2005, Unitarian Universalist Association)Keyboard Amy RosebushVoice Stephen DownenLove knocks and waits for us to hear, to open and invite; Love longs to quiet every fear, and seeks to set things right.Love offers life, in spite of foes, who threaten and condemn;embracing enemies, Love goes the second mile with them.Love comes to heal the broken heart, to ease the troubled mind;without a word Love bids us start to ask and seek and find.Love knocks and enters at the sound of welcome from within;Love sings and dances all around, and feels new life within.Closing Words Attributed to Black Elk, Read by Rev. Amy Kindred.Dear Listener,Were you enlightened by what you heard? Go to uuffpspacecoast.org and show us some love by donating online. Signed, Gratitude Always

In the midst of protests and a pandemic, Jenny hosts a bonus readalong discussion of Ducks, Newburyport. What seems like the random thoughts of a pie-making Midwestern woman turn out to be so much more, and we untangle only a few of the threads in this complex tome. Spoilers Inside.Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 193: And I Feel Fine Subscribe to the podcast via this link: FeedburnerOr subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: SubscribeOr listen through TuneIn Or listen on Google Play Or listen via StitcherOr listen through Spotify New! Listen through Google Podcasts Books discussed:Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy EllmannOther mentions:Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Bibliography by Laura Ingalls WilderSilent Spring by Rachel CarsonJennyBakes - lemon drizzle cake disasterJennyBakes - tarte tatinReading Envy Readers (Goodreads group)After the Cuyahoga River Fire - Great Lakes Now (video)Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon SilkoMartian Time-Slip by Philip K. DickGalactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. DickThe Three-Body Problem by Cixin LiuApocalypse Whenever (Goodreads group)The City We Became by N.K. JemisinThe City and the City by China MievilleThe Fifth Season by N.K. JemisinThe Obelisk Gate by N.K. JemisinMarchpane review of Ducks, NewburyportIt's the End of the World by R.E.M. Related episodes:Episode 090 - Reading Envy Readalong: East of Eden with Ellie and JeffEpisode 093 - Spewing Science with Jeff Koeppen Episode 099 - Readalong: The Secret HistoryEpisode 116 - Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again with Jeff Koeppen Episode 118 - Reading Envy Readalong: To the Bright Edge of the World Episode 137 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Golden NotebookEpisode 148 - Multiple Lives with Jeff  Episode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book CougarsEpisode 185 - The Loyal Swineherd (Odyssey readalong)Book Cougars - Joint Readalong of Sapphira and the Slave Girl  Stalk us online:Jenny at GoodreadsJenny on TwitterJenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and LitsyJeff at GoodreadsJeff on Twitter Jeff is @BestDogDad on Litsy  

Leslie Marmon Silko’s book Ceremony not only displays the depth of creativity in Indigenous literature, it invites us all into a journey of reconciling ourselves, our past, and our future with the people around us. Listen to hear how this book impacted one reader's life, and then order a copy for yourself!

Connor and Jack dive into the poem that opens Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony. Along the way they discuss Plato's Symposium, Walter Ong's writings on orality and literacy, and the historical significance of World War Two on the civil rights movement along with much more. You can learn more about Leslie Marmon Silko, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leslie-marmon-silko Excerpt from Ceremony By: Leslie Marmon Silko Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought-Woman, is sitting in her room and whatever she thinks about appears. She thought of her sisters Nau’ts’ity’i and I’tcts’ity’i and together they created the Universe this world and the four worlds below. Thought-Woman, the spider, named things and as she named them they appeared. She is sitting in her room Thinking of a story now I’m telling you the story she is thinking. Ceremony I will tell you something about stories, [he said] They aren’t just for entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have the stories. Their evil is mighty but it can’t stand up to our stories. So they try to destroy the stories let the stories be confused or forgotten They would like that They would be happy Because we would be defenseless then. He rubbed his belly. I keep it in here [he said] Here, put your hand on it. See, it is moving. There is life here for the people. And in the belly of this story the rituals and the ceremony are still growing. What She Said: The only cure I know is a good ceremony, That’s what she said. Sunrise. Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
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Jenny starts off the year by discussing reading goals - how did her reading goals end up for 2019, what additional goals did she end up adding, and what goals has she set for 2020? As always I love to hear about your goals for the year. As the Reading Envy Podcast rolls over into its sixth year, there are many more reading adventures to explore.Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 177: An Unnamed Middle Eastern Country (Goals 2020).Subscribe to the podcast via this link: FeedburnerOr subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: SubscribeOr listen through TuneIn Or listen on Google Play Listen via StitcherListen through Spotify Episode 140 - Woman Greets Bear (Reading Goals 2019) Back to the Classics wrap-up postReading in Asia 2019 wrap-up postEpisode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book CougarsBook Cougars - Joint Readalong of Sapphira and the Slave GirlRecommended Reads in Memoir (April 2019)Recommended Reads in Poetry (April 2019)Recommended Reads in Music (May 2019Recommended Reads for Women in Translation Month (July 2019) Recommended Foodie Reads (November 2019)Episode 174 - Cozy Holiday Reads and TBR Explode 4Middle East TBR 2020Books under consideration for readalongs:The Odyssey as translated by Emily Wilson (592) Possession by A.S. Byatt (576) Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (1040) Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (786)Stalk me online:  Jenny at GoodreadsJenny on TwitterJenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Amanda and Jenn discuss what to read after Where The Crawdad Sings, time travel fiction, challenging reads, and more in this week’s episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by the Read Harder Journal, The Liar’s Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson, and Care/Of. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. FEEDBACK Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (rec’d by Miranda) Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (rec’d by Miranda) QUESTIONS 1. Hi, I was wondering if you had any recommendations for fun murder mystery novels that are well written and not too dark. I did not enjoy Gone Girl because it was too dark. I love Agatha Christie and have read a good portion of her novels. I am looking for new mysteries that are fun. I recently watched the movie “Clue” and something similar in book format would be great ☺️ -Kaitlin 2. Hello! I am hoping you’ll help me with some new book or series ideas for my husband, who is the type of person who will re-read (and re-listen) to the same books over and over… and over. He also tends to read book series geared towards younger readers. Being an elementary school teacher (currently teaching 6th grade), he likes to recommend & talk books with his students. His all-time favorites include Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, and just about everything by Rick Riordan. He’s also enjoyed Game of Thrones, The Iron Druid Chronicles, and the Scythe trilogy by Neal Shusterman. For stand-alone books, Dark Matter & Ready Player One are recent hits. He’s drawn towards multi-book series because of the rich world-building and loves books seeped in mythology. Plot twist! He also loves U.S. history, particularly about the gold rush and the american revolution. I think he might be into a fantasy adventure with a historical slant. Alexander Hamilton with a talking dog sidekick in a time machine saving the world? He’d probably read that! I’d love to see him continue to explore new worlds, characters, and ideas so the plan is to gift him some new books for the holidays. Thank you so much in advance! -Katie 3. Hi there! Every Christmas I give each of my kids a book that reflects something going on in their lives during the past year. Over the years the collection of books for each child has provided great memories of their interests, accomplishments and dreams. When they were younger it was easier to find books about learning to ride a bike, a cookbook about cakes, or a collection of poems about nature. As they have gotten older, their interests have naturally become more narrowed and specific. I’m hoping you can help me find a book for my oldest daughter, who is 19. This past year she completed an internship where she cared for and trained carnivores at a wildlife park and breeding program. She worked daily feeding and tending to lions, tigers, bears and cheetahs. It was amazing to see her growth over the period of the internship, I’ve never seen her more happy, confident or driven. I’d love to find a book for her about a person who has a similar positive experience with wild animals. I’m open to non-fiction or fiction but would mostly hope for something that continues to inspire her as she works toward her college degree in zoology and on to a career in this field. I have done some searching on my own but often recommendations come back for veterinary medicine and I’m hoping for something more specifically related to care and conservation of animals. Thank you in advance for your recommendations! -Heather 4. I want to get my mom a book her birthday. She works as a director at a basketball camp and one of her jobs is mentoring and organizing the counsellors. She likes self-help type books and I want to find one that’s about leadership in a summer camp or basketball setting, or about mentoring and working with teenagers or young adults. I love your podcast and listen to it every week! -Shannon 5. Hi, I’m looking for a recommendation after finishing reading “Where the crawdads sing” by Delia Owens. I absolutely loved this book, which surprised me as I usually read more plot driven books and don’t usually like descriptions like ” beautiful prose”, “lyrical” and so on. I found myself completely absorbed in the story, loved the language and even underlined some of the sentences. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but I loved that it didn’t contain too many characters, some I could root for, and most of, all the mother nature. The nature scenes were my favourites to read and get lost in. I am going on a backpacking trip to South America next month and looking for a good read. Can you please recommend something similar? Thanks so much! -Kat 6. I recently enjoyed 11.22.63 and the Doomsday book and am looking for more good historical time travel fiction. Kindred is already on my to read list and I read the first Outlander book and found it a bit less consensual than I prefer my romances. Any suggestions for entertaining historical time travel books? -Shaina 7. Each year, I like to tackle a big, scary book—not scary in the sense that the book is frightening (though I’m not opposed to that), more that the book’s physical weight, complexity, and/or subject matter tend to intimidate readers. I’ve previously read Infinite Jest, East of Eden, A Little Life, The Goldfinch, Ulysses, Moby-Dick, etc. I’ve also read shorter work that would qualify, like Joanna Russ’s Female Man. There are a lot of lists on the Internet of the most difficult books, but those lists are largely white and male and I’m looking for something that isn’t. I know I could pick up War and Peace (and probably should read it eventually) but I really want to read as few books by white dudes in 2018 as possible. Can you point me in the direction of heady, challenging doorstopper fiction that meets this criteria? I’m not adverse to any particular genre, I just want to dig into a really difficult book. Thanks in advance! -Meredith BOOKS DISCUSSED Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon (tw: ableist language and slurs around mental health) Dread Nation by Justina Ireland American Hippo by Sarah Gailey Steve and Me by Terri Irwin The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton Sum it Up by Pat Summit Wolfpack by Abby Wambach Deep Creek by Pam Houston The Overstory by Richard Powers (tw: suicide) A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (tw: for everything)

For the second year, we are excited to explore three of the Global Read Aloud books. (You can find out more information about the Global Read Aloud here.) We are thrilled to begin Season 3 with a discussion of three amazing novels for middle grade, middle school, and young adult readers.Listen to the episode, and then let us know what you think!   timeline *Introduction and General Discussion: 00:00 - 01:16 *Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves: 01:17 - 18:45 *Padma Venkatraman's The Bridge Home: 18:46 - 31:59 *Kelly Yang's Front Desk: 32:00 - 43:40   other mentions  *Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony *Cormac McCarthy’s The Road *Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars *Mindy McGinnis’s Not a Drop to Drink *Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven *Alan Gratz’s Refugee *Neal Shusterman’s Dry *R. J. Palacio’s Wonder *Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers *Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”​   other resources  *Joseph Boyden’s Wenjack *​Louise Erdrich’s Tracks *Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine *Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Hearts Unbroken Check out what's coming up next.   want to support unabridged?Become a patron on Patreon.​ Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram. Like and follow our Facebook Page. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast and rate us on iTunes or on Stitcher. Check us out on Podbean.

A growing number of science fiction authors are talking about global warming overtly, imagining futures full of flooded cities, droughts, melting icecaps, and other disasters. There is even a new label used for this, climate fiction or "cli-fi". Shelley Streeby, a professor from the University of California recently published an extensive analysis of the role of speculative fiction in imagining the future of climate change. She reviewed the various activists, artists, and science fiction writers that, from the 1960s to the present, have imagined the consequences of global warming and its impacts on our future. Authors such as Octavia Butler and Leslie Marmon Silko, movie directors such as Bong Joon-Ho, and creators of digital media such as the makers of the Maori web series Anamata Future News have all envisioned future worlds during and after environmental collapse, engaging audiences to think about the earth’s sustainability. As public awareness of climate change has grown, so has the popularity of works of climate fiction that connect science with activism. In this episode Joana Bertholo and Giuseppe Porcaro dive into cli-fi and imagine the impact of global warming on the coastal areas of Europe. We are a hundred years from now and geography has changed. The sea level has risen and the coastline of our continent has heavily changed. How would this new geography of Europe look like? Joana Bértholo is a novelist and a play-writer based in Lisbon, after living abroad for many years, in Europe and South America, with a highlight to the year spent in Buenos Aires, volunteering at Eloisa Cartonera, a very special book publisher that works with the «cartoneros», urban waste scavengers, and their hand-made books.Joana pursues a wide scope of interests through writing, using both the book as the stage and a platform to investigate on ecology, technology, sustainability, narratives, among others topics. She has published three novels, two books of short-stories and a children’s book with Editorial Caminho, one of the most prestigious Portuguese publishing houses; as well as other texts with other publishers in different collections and anthologies. Her latest novel is titled «Ecologia» (Ecology) and is set in a near future where the commodification of society reaches a point that language is privatised and we begin to pay for the words we use. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. Europarama is a follow-up project to DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms.

In her book Picturing Identity (2018), Hertha Sweet Wong (English Department, UC Berkeley) explores the intersection of writing and visual art in the autobiographical work of American writers and artists who employ a mix of written and visual forms of self-narration. Examining the work of such writers-artists as Art Spiegelman, Faith Ringgold, and Leslie Marmon Silko, Wong argues that, in grappling with the breakdown of stable definitions of identity and unmediated representation, her subjects experiment with hybrid autobiography in an effort to break free of inherited visual-verbal regimes and revise painful histories. She shows how their works envision new possibilities of selfhood and fresh modes of self-narration in word and image. Wong is joined by Linda Rugg (Scandinavian).

In episode twenty, we’re doing something a little different. We don’t have just one book to discuss, we have a whole year of reading and books and reading related goals to reflect on. And, of course, we’ve got a bunch of stellar recommendations for you that should see you through those long lazy summer afternoons.So, let’s talk books. We read a pretty interesting mix this year, from This One Summer, a graphic novel from Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, to Clare Wrights The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka to N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season. Some scored the much revered two thumbs up and some, well, not so much.So, what were our high points this year? Hit play and find out!Show Notes:Neve:‘The Learning Curves of Vanessa Partridge’ by Clare Strahan: https://www.readings.com.au/products/25078427/the-learning-curves-of-vanessa-partridge‘The Cruel Prince’ by Holly Black: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-cruel-prince-holly-black/prod9780316310314.html‘Princess in Theory’ by Alyssa Cole: https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-princess-in-theory-alyssa-cole/prod9780062685544.html‘Hurts to Love You’ (and the rest of the Forbidden Hearts series) by Alisha Rai: https://www.booktopia.com.au/hurts-to-love-you-forbidden-hearts-alisha-rai/prod9780062566768.html‘The Governess Game’ by Tessa Dare: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-governess-game-tessa-dare/prod9780062672124.html‘Duke by Default’ by Alyssa Cole: https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-duke-by-default-alyssa-cole/prod9780062685568.htmlKirby:‘Wise Children’ By Angela Carter: https://www.readings.com.au/products/3008186/wise-children‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte: https://www.booktopia.com.au/jane-eyre-charlotte-bronte/prod9781784870737.html‘Ceremony’ by Leslie Marmon Silko: https://www.booktopia.com.au/ceremony-leslie-marmon-silko/prod9780143104919.html‘The Fish Girl’ by Mirandi Riwoe: https://www.readings.com.au/products/24150061/the-fish-girl‘Daughters of Passion’ by Julia O’Faolain: https://www.booktopia.com.au/daughters-of-passion-julia-o-faolain/prod9780571351947.htmlFi:‘A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work’ by Bernadette Brennan: https://www.readings.com.au/products/23163487/a-writing-life-helen-garner-and-her-work‘How To Write An Autographical Novel’ By Alexander Chee: https://www.booktopia.com.au/how-to-write-an-autobiographical-novel-alexander-chee/prod9781328764522.html‘The World Was Whole’ By Fiona Wright: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-world-was-whole-fiona-wright/prod9781925336979.htmlGeorge Ezra & Friends Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/george-ezra-friends/id1346610013?mt=2‘The Wonder of Birds’ by Jim Robbins: https://www.readings.com.au/products/23913878/the-wonder-of-birds-what-they-tell-us-about-ourselves-the-world-and-a-better-futureRecommendations:Fi:The September Issue: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1331025/The Bold Type: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6116060/‘Insomniac City’ by Bill Hayes: https://www.booktopia.com.au/insomniac-city-bill-hayes/prod9781620404942.html‘Notes to Self’ by Emilie Pine: https://www.readings.com.au/products/26408520/notes-to-selfNeve:The Blak Browhttps://www.theliftedbrow.com/current-issue/‘Circe’ by Madeline Millerhttps://www.booktopia.com.au/ebooks/circe-madeline-miller/prod9781408890066.htmlKirby:I Used To Be Normal: https://www.madmanfilms.com.au/i-used-to-be-normal-a-boyband-fangirl-story/‘Bush Studies’ by Barbara Baynton: https://www.readings.com.au/products/15725703/bush-studies‘Her Body and Other Parties’ by Carmen Maria Machado: https://www.booktopia.com.au/her-body-and-other-parties-carmen-maria-machado/prod9781555977887.htmlContact Us:Twitter: @litcanonballInstagram: @literarycanonballFind us on Facebook at Literary Canon BallEmail: literarycanonball@gmail.com

The 6th episode of Lexivore, the last of this year (wow!), has Renee and Megha talking about inclusion and representation - yet again - and this time touching on some of the darker aspects of our history, with Native American Literature - one historical fiction: I am Regina by Sally M Kheen, and one by a Native author: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.  It seems a fitting time, since November is Native American Heritage Month.  We also include a teaser for our next episode, in January, which is going to be for Black History Month.  We hope you enjoy our podcast!

Host: Rio Matchett Dr Kiron Ward | University of East Anglia Kiron is a Teaching Fellow in Postcolonial Literature at the University of Sussex. He completed his PhD thesis, Fictional Encyclopaedism in James Joyce, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Robert Bolaño: Towards A Theory of Literary Totality, at the University of Sussex in May 2017. He is the co-editor, with Katherine Da Cunha Lewin (University of Sussex), of Don DeLillo: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, which is out with Bloomsbury Academic in October, and, with James Blackwell Phelan (Vanderbilt University), of ‘Encyclopedia Joyce,’ a special issue of the James Joyce Quarterly. Kiron is also on the Academic Committee for the 2019 North American James Joyce Conference in Mexico City; the theme is ‘Joyce Without Borders,’ and the Call for Papers can be found at https://www.joycewithoutborders.com/ Dr Helen Saunders | King’s College London Helen is a PhD candidate at King’s College London writing on modernist literature and fashion, with a particular interest in the work of James Joyce. She is a postgraduate representative for the British Association of Modernist Studies and was previously an Administrator at the Centre for Modern Literature and Culture at King’s College London. In addition, Helen is an Editorial Assistant at Bloomsbury. Previously she has worked as a teaching assistant at King’s College London, a private tutor, a bookseller, and as a media analyst. Genevieve Sartor | Trinity College Dublin Genevieve is a PhD Candidate at Trinity College Dublin. She is editor of James Joyce and Genetic Criticism (Brill 2018), and has published or forthcoming articles in the Journal of Modern Literature, the University of Toronto Quarterly, the James Joyce Literary Supplement, Deleuze Studies and The Irish Times.Her current interdisciplinary research concerns a manuscript-based James Joycean critique of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s late seminars. Dr Mark McGahon | Queen’s University, Belfast Mark is a University Tutor at Queen’s University, Belfast. He completed his PhD in 2016 on ‘Acts of Injustice and the Construction of Social Reality in James Joyce’s Ulysses’ and is currently working toward turning this project into a book. This work traces injustices that cannot be made known due to acts of silencing in several chapters of Ulysses. It uses a concept of injustice formulated by the French thinker Jean-Francois Lyotard whereby dominant social realities silence unwanted perspectives. His article, ‘Silence, Justice, and the Différend in Joyce’s Ulysses’ appeared in ‘Silence in Modern Irish Writing, edited by Michael McAteer in 2017. He has also reviewed extensively, notably in ‘Irish Studies Review’ and ‘James Joyce Quarterly’.

Grant Faulkner is an American writer, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, and the co-founder of the online literary journal 100 Word Story. Grant Faulkner was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He earned a B.A. in English from Grinnell College and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the writer Heather Mackey, and their two children. The following is from: http://www.grantfaulkner.com Picasso famously said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” How can we be creative every day? That’s the question Pep Talks for Writers sets out to answer. And it’s an important one, right? I know you feel story ideas beckoning you to give them voice. You’ve felt the wondrous, magical rushes of creativity. You know how being creative can change the way you wake up, how you approach your work, how you connect with other people. Approaching the world with a creative mindset is wildly transforming—because suddenly you’re not accepting the world as it’s delivered to you, but living through your vision of life. That’s the gift I see each November during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I witness thousands of people break down the barricades that prevent them from writing the novel of their dreams and take on the Herculean task of writing a novel of 50,000 words in just 30 days. Writing suddenly leaps up from the cluttered basement of their daily tasks to stand tall on the pedestal of life for an entire month. An audacious goal and deadline serve as creative midwives (and an occasional bullwhip), and writers are propelled by the scintillating rushes of their imagination and the galvanizing force of the huzzahs coming from what can seem like the entire world writing with them. It seems like such a rollicking novel-writing party is never going to end, but then on December 1, the roars of rapacious novelists start to quiet. Suddenly, people are doing things like shopping for Christmas presents, studying for finals, or cleaning the mayhem their house has become. (Creativity gives the world many things, but it rarely provides a tidy house.) The thing I hear most often after National Novel Writing Month is “I loved writing during NaNoWriMo, but I have trouble writing the rest of the year.” It’s challenging to muster such energy each day. The galloping pace of NaNoWriMo is over, and it can be difficult to get up on the proverbial writing horse again. Urgent items on your to-do lists clamor for attention, and tackling those items is important, necessary work—buying groceries, washing dishes, fixing that squeaky door that has bugged you the last three years—so, really, how could you keep doing something so trivial as write? Suddenly, you start to feel creativity falling down on your to-do list. You know the joy it gives you, the life meaning, yet those slithering, pernicious beasts called “the demands of life” loudly yell what you should be doing (and I won’t even mention the siren calls of social media). No one assigns us to be creative. And, what’s more, society usually doesn’t reward creativity, at least not unless your work makes it to the shelves of a bookstore, the walls of a gallery, or the stage of a theater. You might not think you’re a creative type, but to be human is to be a creative type, so one of the shoulds in your life should be to make sure creativity is not only at the top of your to-do list, but that you put your creativity into action every day. If you put off your dreams today, you create the momentum to put them off all the way to your deathbed. We yearn to touch life’s mysteries, to step out into the world looking for new solutions to old problems, if not new worlds altogether. We need to tap into our vulnerabilities, seek to understand our fears, look at life through others’ eyes, ask questions, and open up our awareness of the wonders of the universe. Each story is a gift, a door that opens a new way to see and relate with others in this crazy, crazy world. Stories are the oxygen our souls breathe, a way to bring the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable to life. Our creative lives shouldn’t be a hall pass from the stiff and forbidding demands of our lives. Writing our stories takes us beyond the grueling grind that life can unfortunately become, beyond the constraints of the roles we find ourselves in each day, to make the world a bigger place. Stories remind us that we’re alive, and what being alive means. “Only art penetrates . . . the seeming realities of this world,” said Saul Bellow in his Nobel Prize speech. Leslie Marmon Silko says that stories are “all we have to fight off illness and death.” Jacqueline Woodson says writers are “the ones who are bearing witness to what’s going on in the world.” For a writer, life hasn’t really been lived until one’s stories find their way onto the page. We exist in the flickers of a rift with the world, searching for words that will sew the fissure, heal it. A rupture, a wound, finds the salve of a story. If you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. If you don’t create, you hurt yourself. The signature of your self is formed by the work you put into your story. Making art tells you who you are. Making art in turn makes you. So it’s your duty as a writer, as a person, to build a world through your words and believe in your story as a beautiful work of incarnation, to see it as a gift to yourself and others, as something that elevates life with new meaning—your meaning. Writing a story is many things: a quest, a prayer, a hunger, a tantrum, a flight of the imagination, a revolt, a daring escape that ironically leads you back to yourself. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning. Our stories are the candles that light up the darkness that life can become, so we must live in the warm hues of our imaginative life. It’s not easy, though. The efforts of creativity carry angst and psychological obstacles that must be overcome. In this book, we’ll explore 52 different approaches to being creative every day. Each pep talk will include ways for you to explore your creative notions and angles, because life and writing are really ongoing creative experiments. Some pep talks may sing out to where you are now, while others might become relevant later in your writing process. The important thing is to keep your creative life at the forefront of your thoughts and actions. We become the things we do, and I can promise you, if you excavate your life to make room for your imagination, if you open up time to keep writing, you won’t just finish your novel, pen the poem in your head, or submit a short story you’ve worked so hard on, you’ll change, because once you realize yourself as a creator, you create worlds on and off the page. If you hear the whispers of a novel coming from the other room, or ideas for other stories caterwauling for their day in the sun, dive in. “The days are long, but the years are short,” some wise person once said. Your story can’t wait. It needs you. Buy Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo.

Welcome to Mere Rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren. This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, which is a time for food, family and remembering that this land was forcibly occupied from a variety of disenfranchised indigenous people. So in honor of that tradition, today we’ll be talking about a book called American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance, edited by Ernest Stromberg.   First off, we might have to define a couple of the words in the title, which is actually the same step that Stromberg makes in his introduction. He acknowledges that “American Indian” is a pretty broad title to encompass a spectrum of people whose boundaries were and are constantly shifting as questions of heritage, culture, genetics and geography are redefined over and over again. Similarly, the title makes use of ‘rhetorics’ instead of ‘rhetoric’ because there is no singular, Western European-influence rhetoric, but a variety of methods to create symbolic understanding. And now for the kicker--what does “survivance” mean? Survivance, a term coined by Gerald Vizenor, “goes beyond mere survival to acknowledge the dynamic and creative nature of Indigenous rhetoric” (1). Vizenor himself defines it as “Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry.” This means that instead of hanging on white knuckled, you thrive, turning your position of oppression into one of resistance.   Over all, the chapters in the book all highlight the way that native american rhetors were able to reappropriate the tropes and stereotypes of their different eras into strategies of persuasion. This includes what Stromberg calls an “acute awareness of [an] audience” (6)that frequently includes white people who may hold their own preconceptions about a Native American speaker. Karen A Redfield provides a term for this when she says “The attempt to find ways to commynicate with non-Native people taht I am calling external rhetoric” (151). External rhetoric is important for rhetors who are “astute enough to tell stories so that white people can hear them” (154).   Let me give you a couple of examples from the book.In Matthew Dennis’ chapter on the 18th century diplomat Red Jacket, he points out that “Red Jacket was capable of deploying to good effect teh conventions of the Vanishing Indian, a white discourse taht imagined various individual Indians as the ‘last of their race.’ In 1797 in Hartford, Connecticut, the Seneca orator says: ‘we stand on a small island in the bosom of the great waters. We are encircles--we are encompassed. The evil spirit rides upon the blast and the waters are disturbed. They rise, they press upon us, and the waves once settled over us, we disappear forever. Who then lives to mourn us? None. What marks our extinction? Nothing. We are mingled with the common elements’” (23). Whoo. Chills. One of the great things about this book is the recovery of such rhetoric, which presents powerful arguments which are also acutely aware of the conventions in which they are made. Another rhetor who played off of white expectations is Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, who Malea D. Powell describes as creating a “deliberate performance of the kind of Indianness that would have appealed to her late nineteenth-century reformist audiences” (69) as she fashioned herself as the ‘nobel Indian princess’ who could speak in behalf of her people.   These native american orators blend the rhetorics of their borderlands together in what Patrica Bizzell in this volume calls “mixed blood rhetoric” (41). These borderlands can be boarding schools where Native Americans were stripped of their cultural heritage, as the authors Ernest Stromberg studies describe, or the fringes of American and indigenous legal cultures as Janna Knittel and Peter d’Errico describe. These borderlands have existed since Western Europe met the Western Hemisphere, for sure, but they are not a thing of the cowboys-and-indians past. Anthony G. Murphy describes how the documentaries made for PBS in the 1990s about cowboys-and-indians--or rather, about Custer and the battle of little bighorn--highlights how questions about the past, and whose sources of the past we use, are under continual debate. Murphy’s historiography of the battle and the ways that “assumptions of  historical authenticity [have been] long held by the imperial center of American society that has until now attempted to maintain hegemonic control over the Custer Myth” (204). The past keeps meaning new things.   This text also encompasses a variety of genres. Contemporary Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko  is the focus of Ellen L. Arnold’s literary analysis, while Holly L Baumgartner examines an anthology of Native American autobiographies. Karen A Redfield looks at newspapers and Others like Angela Pully Hudson look at political speeches. The last peice in the antholgoy, is piece of ficto-criticism by Richard Clark Eckert, which begins with the question “Who symbolizes a ‘real Indian?”’”   This is a great book to open up a lot of new rhetorical study about native american rhetoric in many time periods and genres, but, as any anthology, it’s more generative than exhaustive. As Ernest Stromberg points out, “the purpose of this text is not aimed at achieving the closure of a conclusion; rather, it suggests future directions for the study of American Indian rhetoric.”   If you’d like to suggest future directions for the podcast or have feedback, drop us a line at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com. Until then, have a great Thanksgiving, and remind your friends and loved ones of the words of Red Jacket “At the treates held for the purchase of our lands, the white man with sweet voices and smiling faces told us they loved us and theat they would not cheat us [...] these things puzzle our heads and we beleive that the Indians must take care of themselves and not trust either in your people or in the king’s children” (qtd pg 28).

The maps drawn up by early settlers to plot their inexorable expansion were not the first representations of North American space. Colonialism does not simply impose a new reality, after all, but attempts to shatter and discard whole systems of understanding. Indigenous maps preceded the colonial encounter and indigenous maps persist is this extended colonial moment. In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Mishuana Goeman finds in the poetry and prose of Native women authors the maps of both colonialism's persistence and resistance to its ongoing containments. Goeman shows how writers like E. Pauline Johnson, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich point toward a Native future beyond the settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The maps drawn up by early settlers to plot their inexorable expansion were not the first representations of North American space. Colonialism does not simply impose a new reality, after all, but attempts to shatter and discard whole systems of understanding. Indigenous maps preceded the colonial encounter and indigenous maps persist is this extended colonial moment. In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Mishuana Goeman finds in the poetry and prose of Native women authors the maps of both colonialism’s persistence and resistance to its ongoing containments. Goeman shows how writers like E. Pauline Johnson, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich point toward a Native future beyond the settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The maps drawn up by early settlers to plot their inexorable expansion were not the first representations of North American space. Colonialism does not simply impose a new reality, after all, but attempts to shatter and discard whole systems of understanding. Indigenous maps preceded the colonial encounter and indigenous maps persist is this extended colonial moment. In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Mishuana Goeman finds in the poetry and prose of Native women authors the maps of both colonialism’s persistence and resistance to its ongoing containments. Goeman shows how writers like E. Pauline Johnson, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich point toward a Native future beyond the settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The maps drawn up by early settlers to plot their inexorable expansion were not the first representations of North American space. Colonialism does not simply impose a new reality, after all, but attempts to shatter and discard whole systems of understanding. Indigenous maps preceded the colonial encounter and indigenous maps persist is this extended colonial moment. In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Mishuana Goeman finds in the poetry and prose of Native women authors the maps of both colonialism’s persistence and resistance to its ongoing containments. Goeman shows how writers like E. Pauline Johnson, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich point toward a Native future beyond the settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The maps drawn up by early settlers to plot their inexorable expansion were not the first representations of North American space. Colonialism does not simply impose a new reality, after all, but attempts to shatter and discard whole systems of understanding. Indigenous maps preceded the colonial encounter and indigenous maps persist is this extended colonial moment. In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Mishuana Goeman finds in the poetry and prose of Native women authors the maps of both colonialism’s persistence and resistance to its ongoing containments. Goeman shows how writers like E. Pauline Johnson, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich point toward a Native future beyond the settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Children of Fire, Children of Water: Simon J. Ortiz & Gabriele M. Schwab read from their unpublished book. Moderator: Leslie Marmon Silko. Ortiz & Schwab's joint project is unpublished as a whole but for two sections in the following: “Imaginary Homeland Security: The Internalization of Terror,” pp. 79-95, America and the Misshaping of a New World Order, Eds. Giles Gunn and Carl Gutierrez-Jones, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2010; “Memory Is Key,” pp. 68-81, The Kenyon Review, Fall 2008, Vol. XXX, No. 4, Gambier, OH. Simon J. Ortiz and Gabriele M. Schwab, Children of Fire, Children of Water is a collaborative book project composed of dialogical memory pieces that reflect on memory, history and trauma in today’s global world. We are drawing on both personal memories and on the collective memories gathered from two different post-World War II cultures, Native American and German. Our memory pieces perform a cross-cultural exchange between Simon Ortiz, a Native American writer growing up on a reservation under the continuing forces of US colonization, and Gabriele M. Schwab, a writer of German origin who grew up in postwar Germany under French and US occupation and lives in the US. Reflecting upon historical violence and the ongoing traumatic effects of colonialism, war and genocide on individuals and communities, we are using a dialogical, experimental and evocative form. A form of cross-cultural boundary work, our memory pieces look at the traces left by the histories of colonialism and wars on our respective cultural imaginaries. Writing together, we position ourselves in a transitional space between our cultures and between history and the present. We use the stories we weave together as evocative objects that trigger memories we could not have recalled in the same way from within ourselves. In this process, individual memories transform themselves into a new synthetic memory born from cultural crossings. Our stories are not mere recordings of memories but rewritings of cultural memory in light of another culture. We hope that our audience becomes part of this process of rewriting memory during which histories are found and enacted in the present. The pieces in Children of Fire, Children of Water resemble mosaic compositions or kaleidoscopic images with fluid boundaries. They create a performance of cross-historical and cross-cultural encounters in two voices that, while discrete and distinct, continually interact with and color each other. The dynamic energy behind our project is created by resonances between our pieces and their power to work as catalysts for new memories that might never have emerged otherwise. Rewriting our stories in light of the other’s stories, we often play with bifocal storytelling and include bi- or multilingual interferences. But we also carry the traumatic silences and mute images of violent histories into our work, reflecting how the latter have marked us in different, yet often comparable if not resonant ways. The juxtaposition of life histories from different traditions, cultures and places may productively test habitual assumptions and patterns of thought as well as feeling states, if not structures of feeling. In the best case, such practices become part of unsettling engrained patterns of remembering violent histories.

Leslie Marmon Silko, a former professor of English and fiction writing, is the author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry, articles, and film scripts. She has won prizes, fellowships, and grants from such sources as the National Endowment for the Arts and The Boston Globe. She was the youngest writer to be included in The Norton Anthology of Women's Literature, for her short story "Lullaby." Ms. Silko lives in Tucson, Arizona. Her reading was held on April 6, 2011.

The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir ( Viking) The Sonoran desert, its creatures and features, its ants and plants, becomes the classroom for that most trans-human of lessons. Poet, novelist and essayist Leslie Marmon Silko provides a memoir of her education outdoors.

The Almanac of the Dead   The visionary nightmare novel took of Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko years to write. Today, she talks about the difficulty of living while writing a bleak American novel.