Podcast
Literary Nomads
Hosted by Steve Chisnell · EN
Join me, Steve Chisnell, as we find and lose meaning across modern and classic tales, through ancient and distant verse, atop everything in our many cultures which might be read. For teachers, students, and lovers of reading, we will discover new paths to understanding!
23episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Mapping Dreams
5d ago00:38:01Tap to summarizeHow do we navigate the space between the curated tourism experience and the raw concrete of the world beneath it? We investigate the “imaginative geographies” we project onto other lands, examining how Italo Calvino’s semiotic cities, Arthur Conan Doyle’s romanticized London, and Mathieu Kassovitz’s brutalist Paris reveal the ethical tensions of the traveler’s gaze. We look into our habit of cropping out infrastructure and ask whether reading the raw city makes us better travelers or something worse. Bloomsday in Dublin and Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital are also considered. Resources: Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities, 1974. Doyle, Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet,” 1930. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, 1989. Joyce, James. Ulysses, 1922. Kassovitz, Mathieu, director. La Haine, 1995. Said, Edward W. Orientalism, 1978. Sinclair, Iain, and Chris Petit, directors. London Orbital, 2002. Sinclair, Iain. London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25, 2002. Episode 7.07 – Mapping Dreams Glossary Imaginative Geography: The thought process, according to Edward Said, where we build a mental conception of a foreign landscape through literature, art, and personal or cultural desire long before we physically arrive, pre-determining and replacing the actual physical geography with a commodified myth. See Edward Said’s Orientalism, 1978. Staged Authenticity: The socio-spatial phenomenon where tourism operators construct aesthetically controlled “front stages” (such as curated landmarks or replica villages) to satisfy the consumer/tourist’s desire for an authentic encounter, even while actively concealing the “back-stage” realities of local labor, economic extraction, and physical infrastructure. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you crop a travel photograph to remove a power line, parking lot, or trash can, what reality are you trying to erase? How does Sherlock Holmes’s cocaine addiction or Leopold Bloom’s alienation ruin the versions of London and Dublin sold by tourism? How has Edward Said’s “imaginative geography” worked on your travel expectations in the past? Do you watch fictional films or read books about urban decay or poverty? For what reasons? Which of the two Calvino cities featured most resonate with you, Tamara or Zaira? Why? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: The Grand Tour - PDF Packing Lists - PDF Author Footprints - PDF Mapping Dreams - PDF Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 PEI and Tamara 04:26 Intro Theme 05:03 My PEI Failures 13:49 The Unhandy Embrace 20:51 Some Skeptical Exercises (Pt 4) 23:37 Zaira and Hard Spaces 36:45 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-07-mapping-dreams New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.07 Mapping Dreams. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 31 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Author Footprints Pt. 2 – The Aracataca Paradox
2w ago00:33:25Tap to summarizeWhat happens to a real, working community when a fictional landscape is physically constructed on top of it? We discover the socio-economic friction behind literary travel, contrasting the magical ideals of Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo with the unpaved streets of Aracataca, Colombia. Behind the “front stage” of tourist attractions are bulldozers, evictions, and even a violent army. We learn about the history of PEI National Park expropriations, the 1928 Banana Massacre, and how to critically read tourist destinations beyond the gift shop facade. Resources: García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space, 1991. Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Avonlea, 1909. Montgomery, L. M. The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery, Volume V: 1935–1942, 2004. Steele, Fiona, host. “Painting the Gables ‘Green’.” The Hidden Island, Season 3, Episode 5, 12 Sept 2022. Episode 7.06 – Author Footprints Pt. 2 - The Aracataca Paradox Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you encounter a perfectly preserved historical landmark, what omissions or missing community details must you ignore to maintain your feeling of nostalgia? How does the presence of a corporate licensing agreement or trademark boundary alter an author’s legacy? When local residents invent fictional anecdotes or point to fake historical spots for visiting pilgrims, who is truly controlling the performance of the tourist site? In what ways does buying a mass-produced souvenir act as a buffer against the uncomfortable economic disparities of the places we visit? If every tourist destination is a manufactured “front stage,” what active choices can a wayfarer make to step off the guided path and read the real location? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: The Grand Tour - PDF Packing Lists - PDF Author Footprints - PDF Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 A Quick Review 00:38 A Broader Context 00:03 Intro Theme 03:52 The Magic and the Austerity 09:19 Plenty of Masks to Go Around 21:51 The Earth Paved Over 32:09 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-06-author-footprints-pt-2 New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.06 Author Footprints Pt. 2 - The Aracataca Paradox. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 24 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Author Footprints Pt. 1 – Aura & Reliquary
3w ago00:31:16Tap to summarizeWhy do we drive thousands of miles just to touch the wooden beams of an author’s birthplace? From Poe’s Baltimore to PEI and Waywords’s own Waterford, MI, we consider what it takes to build a literary destination and how this works to undermine the very real need for we travelers to cross the threshold from the literary into the physical. Is there a way to thwart the hucksters of simulations? Perhaps! Resources: Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space, 1969. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 1969. MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2024. Montgomery, Lucy Maud. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career, 1917. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values, 1990 Episode 7.05 – Author Footprints Pt. 1 - Aura & Reliquary Glossary: Topophilia: The real and physical human desire to meet authentic space and map our emotions onto the physical earth. Heterotopia: A specially-created “other space” or place of difference that exists wholly outside of ordinary daily life. In the context of literary tourism, an arranged, static attraction designed that offers the idea of a flawless, isolated world in contrast to our own. Aura: The unique, irreplaceable physical presence and authority of an original work/art that is weakened by mass reproduction. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you feel a sudden wave of awe while standing inside a historical building, are you emotionally connecting to the long-dead occupant, or are you reacting to the architectural cues—the lighting, the placards, the quiet—designed to trigger a posture of reverence? Consider the threshold of a museum’s velvet rope: how does the act of cordoning off a mundane everyday item (like an author’s writing desk or an antique bookcase) alter your perception of its value compared to an identical item sitting in a thrift store? If our internal imagination requires us to ground ourselves in physical landmarks to feel a text’s “authenticity,” what does that suggest about the limitations of our minds to hold abstract ideas without a concrete, material anchor? Reflect on the psychological role of the gift shop at the end of an historic tour: how does buying a plastic replica or a themed postcard serve as a physical mechanism for our emotions? Think about your own home or neighborhood using the metaphor of a flawless diorama: what details, chores, or structural flaws would you have to entirely censor or rope off to make your daily space look like an arranged attraction for an outside visitor? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: The Grand Tour - PDF Packing Lists - PDF Author Footprints - PDF Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Genuine Impulse 07:29 Intro Theme 08:06 Blueprint of a Shrine 18:19 Simulating Simulations 23:05 The Decay of Aura 30:00 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-05-author-footprints-pt-1 New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.05 Author Footprints Pt 1 - Aura & Reliquary. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 17 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Packing Lists Pt. 2 – Stalwart Women
4w ago00:31:01Tap to summarizeWho carries the weight of our leisure? Some readings from the past by thoughtful and resilient women! Take in some early writing of place and circumstance, journals and reflections which reflect the jarring collisions between our travel expectations and the realities we meet. More, we learn that an adaptable attitude and skeptical eye are essential tools. Readings from: Dorothy Wordsworth - “The Highland Hut” from Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, A.D. 1803 Mary Seacole - Chapter III from Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, 1857 Sei Shōnagon - “182. The House Had a Spacious Courtyard,” from The Pillow Book, c. 1002 Episode 7.04 – Packing Lists Pt. 2 - Stalwart Women Other Resources: MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2024. Glossary: Compartmentalized World: A theoretical concept from Frantz Fanon which describes how the colonial world is divided into two distinct species: the wealthy, secure sector of the colonizer and the impoverished, exploited sector of the colonized. In the context of travel, we ask who is permitted to move safely through a space, and who is forced to serve as manual labor, landscape, or a prop for the comfort of others. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you examine your expectations which you pack for a highly anticipated trip, what do they suggest about the kind of difficulties or travel challenges you most dislike? Consider the physical metaphor of a curtain: if your travel planning and packing keep the “raw” destination apart from you, what boundaries have you created between your leisure and local survival? From Dorothy Wordsworth’s smoky chimney-corner to a modern climate-controlled resort lounge, how has our idea of safety changed and why? Consider when a text presents you with an offensive historical slur or an ugly, uncomfortable truth: does that sudden friction cause you to see the history more clearly or does your mind want to censor and buffer that discomfort away? If “roughing it” or traveling “close to the ground” is also a stylized, performative lifestyle choice, what signals do we project to those who observe us? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: The Grand Tour - PDF Packing Lists - PDF Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Where We’ve Been 01:20 Stalwart Women 03:02 Intro Theme 03:38 Dorothy Wordsworth: “The Highland Hut” 08:07 Mary Seacole: The Chaos of Cruces 22:02 Sei Shonagon: “The Exorcism” 28:39 Sovereign but Skeptical 29:45 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-04-packing-lists-pt-2/ New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.04: Packing Lists Pt. 2 - Stalwart Women,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 10 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Packing Lists Pt. 1: Dreams and Dirt
Jul 300:29:27Tap to summarizeDid your horse throw ya, buddy? We investigate what we hope to achieve by literary travel . . . and why our packing cannot prepare us for it! While the global tourism industry spends billions to shape our eager expectations, what is it that we’re actually so anxious to see? And whatever it is, how likely are we to find it? In this first of two parts, we ask if what we pack in anticipation is to better guarantee our success or to ward us from disappointment. As an example, we read an excerpt from Isabella Bird’s 1879 travelogue, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. And we hear from philosopher/critics Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger along the way. Will we find an answer? Maybe not, but we will be better prepared to understand the questions. Episode 7.03 – Packing Lists Pt. 1: Dreams and Dirt Readings & Resources: Bird, Isabella L. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. 1879. Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. 1917. Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. 1999. MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2024. Glossary: The Broken Tool (Zuhandenheit): Martin Heidegger’s term explaining how we remain unconscious of our protective equipment and infrastructure—our constructed “World”—until the moment it fails us, forcing a sudden encounter with raw nature, or the “Earth.” The Comfort Trap: A psychological defense mechanism in which a reader or traveler seeks “comfort,” “tidiness,” or “closure” to avoid intellectual or moral discomfort. We passively accept a safe, frictionless experience—or a text’s status quo—specifically to avoid confronting nuance or complication in a situation and one’s own possible complicity in it. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you look at the very bottom of your daily commuter bag or travel pack, what do you discover that you find most intolerable? Consider the physical metaphor of a “portable fortress.” How accurate is this to describe your approach to travel? In tracking the transition from a 19th-century carpetbag to a modern multi-compartment backpack, what has changed in our definition of what an adventure is supposed to feel like? Think about when some gear or device failed you. How did you respond: the “stripped gear in the brain?” Or did you see the physical earth more clearly? Why? In our travel behavior and packing lists, who are we performing for? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: The Grand Tour - PDF Packing Lists - PDF Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 The Infrastructure of Dreams 05:22 Intro Theme 05:58 Industrialized Travel 13:57 Isabella Bird & the “Ill-Found” Expedition 22:50 Skeptical Pilgrim Exercises: Counter-weights 28:11 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-03-Packing-Lists-1 New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.03: Packing Lists Pt. 1 - Dreams and Dirt,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 3 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Grand Tours Pt 2: Bat on the Narrow Road
Jun 2600:29:27Tap to summarizeWhat’s the difference between being a passive tourist and a wayfarer? Follow the 17th-century footsteps of Matsuo Basho to interrogate the gap between curated tourist destinations and the open-ended, ego-stripping realities of true travel. By contrasting the lush, internal landscapes of L.M. Montgomery with the skeletal prose of classical Japanese travel sketches, we ask: Can we ever truly encounter a sovereign landscape, or do our books merely wrap the earth in a comforting postcard illusion? Along the way, we look at the haiku in its haibun form and use Martin Heidegger’s classic distinction between ‘Earth’ and ‘World.’ Can Basho’s haiku lessons rescue us from our egos. Maybe, but 400 years later, other writers have their own responses to him! Episode 7.02 – Grand Tours Pt 2: Bat on the Narrow Road Readings & Resources: Bashō, Matsuo. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa. Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. 1917. Montgomery, L. M. The Blue Castle. 1926. Downer, Lesley. On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan, 1989 Flanagan, Richard. The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Knopf, 2014. Goldberg, Natalie. Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku, 2020. Merton, Thomas. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, 1973. Glossary: Wayfaring: A mode of travel in which the journey itself becomes the destination and concept of home, characterized by a constant, open-ended wandering rather than arriving at a fixed point. Haibun: A traditional Japanese literary form that intricately blends prose and haiku poetry so that the two distinct modes of writing interact and illuminate each other. Noncompletion: An ongoing, unresolved state of existing “between” spaces or ideas, embraced by the wayfarer as the permanent, true condition of a journey that has no final destination. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you observe a natural setting, how have books influenced your conception of it? Consider the difference between a destination that promises modern amenities and an open-ended un-curated route with no final stop: how does the presence or absence of structural comforts affect your attitude? In tracking your own neighborhood’s daily life, how might an ordinary object to become a site of specific poetic meaning rather than clutter? How does treading a travel guide affect your ability to sit with the silent, un-responding aspects of a foreign town? If you strip your travel history of its status landmarks and souvenirs, what remains? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges 1: The Grand Tour - PDF Download Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Where We’ve Been 01:12 Field Notes and the East 07:20 Intro Theme 07:55 Wayfaring and The Bat 15:26 Earth vs World in the Haibun 23:41 Reversing the Narrow Road 28:11 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-02-Grand-Tours-2 New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.02: Grand Tours Pt 2: Bat on the Narrow Road,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 26 June 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Transcribe →Grand Tours Pt 1: The Postcard Illusion
Jun 2000:34:10Tap to summarizeAre we consuming an authentic place, or are we willingly participating in a beautifully staged performance designed around our own expectations? In this opening episode of Journey 7, we begin our exploration of literary tourism. When we travel to the places that inspired our favorite books, whose landscape are we actually stepping into? Today. we cross the eight-mile concrete expanse onto Prince Edward Island to investigate the massive, multi-million dollar infrastructure designed to capitalize on Anne of Green Gables. Along the way, we unpack our collective urge to buy raspberry cordials and straw hats. Along the way, we discover the strange history of the historical Grand Tour, and we investigate the “tourist gaze” and how the global tourism industry packages our favorite books into easily consumed souvenirs. If you love travelogues, literary history, or exploring the real-world histories behind famous books like Anne of Green Gables, this episode will challenge the way we view our next vacation destination. Episode 7.01 – Grand Tours Pt 1: The Postcard Illusion Readings & Resources: Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Green Gables. 1908 Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of the Island. 1915 Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne’s House of Dreams. 1917 Montgomery, Lucy Maud. The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery. Edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston Montgomery, Lucy Maud. The Story Girl. 1911 MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel. Routledge, 2024 Glossary: Grand Tour: A traditional, multi-year journey across continental Europe that served as a mandatory educational rite of passage for upper-class, wealthy young men from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries. Officially intended to complete a gentleman’s classical education by exposing him to the art, architecture, and polite society of the Old World, it also provided a socially acceptable escape from parental control to pursue worldly pleasures and construct an elite “martial masculinity.” Tourist Gaze: How travelers view and consume a destination, shaped by what guidebooks and the tourism industry have conditioned them to expect to see. Skeptical Pilgrim: A traveler who deeply loves a literary work or historical destination but adopts a critical, questioning posture, refusing to passively accept the fictionalized, manufactured reality that a tourist destination attempts to sell them. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you select a specific souvenir from a location, how does that physical object alter or secure the memory of the real space you left behind? Consider the texts you choose to read versus the places you choose to visit; what makes a comforting historical fiction preferable to a reality of contemporary labor? In analyzing your own home, what is the process of selection behind the display pieces on your shelves, and how do they perform an identity for visitors? How does the presence of a guidebook or a digital travel route affect your ability to notice the un-curated, raw elements of a new place? If you map your immediate neighborhood purely through your senses rather than visual landmarks, how does that shift your understanding of who owns and occupies that space? Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges 1: The Grand Tour - PDF Download Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Field Notes & Trailhead 0:00:0.000000 05:35 Intro Theme 06:11 Montgomery and Two Worlds 10:53 The Grand Tour and the Invention of the Gaze 17:57 Tourist Gazing 25:40 Skeptic Pilgrim Challenges 28:28 Screens and Modern Escapes 32:54 Closing Credits === Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-01-Grand-Tours-1 New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.01: Grand Tours Pt 1: The Postcard Illusion,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 19 June 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.
Transcribe →Literary Tourism Trailer
Jun 500:04:16Tap to summarizeWelcome to the summer trailhead! Join Journey 7 of Literary Nomads as we explore the secrets of literary tourism and travel writing. Discover how authors like L.M. Montgomery constructed the identity of Prince Edward Island, unpack the cultural legacy of Anne of Green Gables, and learn how to look past the postcard illusions of modern historic landmarks. Episode 7.00 – Literary Tourism Trailer : Anne of Green Gables Reading Highlights Ahead: Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Anne of Green Gables Series, personal Journals, The Haunted Wood, The Alpine Path, Among the Shadows Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (“The Highland Hut”) by Dorothy Wordsworth Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (“The Chaos of Cruces”) by Mary Seacole A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (“The ‘Ill-Found’ Expedition,” by Isabella Bird “The Exorcism” by Sei Shōnagon To the River by Olivia Laing Gabriel García Márquez’s Aracataca / Macondo texts “The Mark on the Wall” by Virginia Woolf Indigenous Australian Songlines (e.g., the Seven Sisters myth) Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges English Eccentrics by Edith Sitwell Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Trailer === Transcript and Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-00-literary-tourism New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “7.00: Literary Tourism Trailer” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 5 June 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.
Transcribe →Nomadic Departures
May 2900:39:18Tap to summarizeWe are left on the precipice of a severe, unavoidable aporia: when the Empire can absorb and commercialize our very language of protest, the only true ethical act of agency is to stop performing the script, reject the easy answer, and step directly out into the unimaginable dark . We challenge the profound hypocrisy of our own reading habits, and confront the uncomfortable idea that our graduate seminars, book clubs, and elite cultural critiques often function as a highly managed form of otium—a beautifully curated performative space that we purchase with company-backed grants to feel virtuous while leaving our agency for change behind. Consider the collision between Le Guin’s unmapped wilderness, Mark Fisher’s capitalist realism, Roger Waters’ scathing critique of economic indifference in “Us and Them,” and Ivan Karamazov’s terrifying refusal to accept a universe founded on unavenged tears: we wrestle with the limits of systemic tolerance and our only steps forward. Episode 6.37 – Nomadic Departures Readings & Resources: Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, 1879. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? 2009. Gainsborough, Thomas. Mr and Mrs Andrews. c. 1750, oil on canvas. James, William. “The Will to Believe.” The New World, 1896. Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Harper & Row, 1975, pp. 275-284. Pink Floyd. The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973. Popper, Karl. The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945. Glossary: Aporia: A state of being deadlocked in an unresolvable contradiction or paradox where we can go no further in our knowing. It is often a productive, discomfiting space of uncertainty that forces an individual to make a choice, interpret, and step forward without the comfort of easy answers or absolute truths. Capitalist Realism - The stifling, pervasive illusion that the current capitalist economic system is the only practical, applicable order in the world and is therefore entirely inescapable . It acts as a neutralizing force that absorbs attempts at resistance by convincing people that imagining viable alternatives is impossible, romantic, or overly dramatic. Follow-up Reading: Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Transactional Morality - An ethical framework rooted in the logic of economics, where moral choices are based entirely on the utility of exchange and trade-offs. Critiqued heavily by thinkers like Georges Bataille, this mindset operates on the assumption that every action, suffering, or sacrifice must be made in exchange for some advantage, effectively commodifying human relationships . The Willing Victim - A profound moral paradox wherein a scapegoat voluntarily consents to their own suffering in order for the larger society or “edifice” to prosper. Such consent shatters straightforward moral outrage, complicating the ethics of resistance by forcing onlookers to question whether rejecting such a system is a genuine act of rebellion or an act of moral cowardice that ignores the victim’s agency. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When you engage in a passionate debate about political or literary theory, are you genuinely trying to cause a local disruption, or are you just running a competitive performance to elevate your own cultural status? Look at the daily economic suffering, homelessness, or systemic extraction happening at your neighborhood borders . Do you quickly sanitize that reality by telling yourself “there’s only so much one ordinary person can do?” How has your regular leisure time (otium) or your personal reading routine been subtly gamified or turned into a data point by online platforms to ensure you stay productive 24/7? Think about the local first responders, teachers, or high-risk laborers who routinely absorb physical, mental, and economic precarity to keep your community stable . Does their “voluntary sacrifice” clear your conscience, or does it heighten your structural accountability? What is the precise moral principle or systemic threshold that would finally force you to drop your unearned luxuries, reject your lifestyle, and walk completely away from a toxic compromise? Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/ CHAPTERS 00:00 A Little Drama 02:05 Intro Theme 02:42 Victims, Objects, Predators 08:23 The Global Basement 16:47 The Baggage We Carry: Maya 22:33 The Ultimate Aporia 30:22 Manipulations: Finn 38:02 Closing Credits === Transcript and Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/6-37-nomadic-departures New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “6.37: Nomadic Departures,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 29 May 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.
Transcribe →What I Get Wrong: Intimidation & Interpretation
May 2200:38:43Tap to summarizeIs our intellectual exercise just an expensive lifestyle brand that keeps our hands clean? In this raw, self-interrogating mailbag episode, we turn the lens inward for a vulnerability audit of our own political battles and pedagogical failures. Let’s try and bridge the gap between literary theory and civic praxis, how public school teachers, students, and lifelong readers can navigate the intimidation of administrative bureaucracy, fight censorship, and reclaim accountability. Let’s get past passive book consumption and embrace “Writing Back” to structurally alter our local communities. Episode 6.36 – What I Get Wrong: Intimidation & Interpretation Readings & Resources: Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970. Giroux, Henry A. Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, 1983. Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions When we use academic language or literary analysis to describe a social injustice, does that lead to eventual action or as insulation or safety from responsibility to act? Why are we so obsessed with making every book or public issue “relatable” to our own personal lives? How might relatability cause us to miss the writer’s message? Think about a time you noticed a business or organization involved in sketchy or unlawful behavior. Did the sheer size of the bureaucracy intimidate you into staying silent? Why does it feel so terrifying to admit an intellectual error or show people a real-world project where you failed? Why do we think hiding our mistakes makes us look more qualified? If you had to stop just talking about this season’s ideas and actually go disrupt a local system this week, which specific “space of authority” would you have to walk into? Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/ CHAPTERS 00:00 The Praxis of Complicity 09:24 Intro Theme 09:59 Messy Dialogues: Our Mailbag 11:12 -Ben: Escapist Privilege 14:10 -Aakash: Measuring Otium 18:13 -Jim: Just Mirrors 21:45 -Sarah: Empathy Trouble 24:46 -Kendall & NLH: Fear of Disruption 30:04 What I Get Wrong 37:27 Closing Credits === Transcript and Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/6-36-what-i-get-wrong New to Literary Nomads? Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/ Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag === Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas. Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses. Website: https://waywordsstudio.com Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/ Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio === CREDITS: Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/) Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski USING THIS WORK: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution. MLA CITATION: Chisnell, Steve. “6.36: What I Get Wrong: Intimidation & Interpretation,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 22 May 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/.
Transcribe →