Podcasts | Waywords Studio

The “Hideous Bargain” moves from metaphor to the operating table.

In this episode, we let loose the bonds of metaphor in Le Guin’s “Omelas” and meet the visceral reality of clinical labor. We examine how the “Sanitization of Language” allows societies—from the United Federation of Planets to modern biotechnology markets—to rebrand human suffering as a “sacred honor” or a “net gain”.

We explore the “clinical labor” of Star Trek and Never Let Me Go. We re-story the “Redshirt” trope through the lens of necropolitics and the ethical extractions of the modern bioeconomy.

Episode 6.29 –

Uto...

The Omelas basement has a physical address in America: the prison-industrial complex. 

This week, we use the lens of Toni Morrison’s literary criticism to interrogate the 13th Amendment and the ‘Hideous Bargain” of mass incarceration. If the basement is built into our laws, can we ever truly ‘walk away’?

We analyze Toni Morrison’s book Playing in the Dark and the prison-industrial complex through the documentary film 13th. We discuss the ‘Architecture of the Dungeon,’ and the ‘Hideous Bargain’ of American systemic racism.  We discuss how ‘white silence’ sustains the Omelas basement and why dismantling the ‘Utopia Il...

What happens to the story when the ‘object’ of our sympathy looks back and refuses the role we’ve written for them?

The allegory of the ‘Suffering Child’ is a powerful challenge, but it creates its own blind spots: it can turn a living history into a static prop. This week, we use Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars to break that Omelas mirror. We explore the ‘Sovereign Center’—a reality where trauma is not a relic in a basement, but an active, intergenerational authorship that demands a more strenuous engagement than simply ‘walking away.’

We also consider the lega...

Your Interpretation is Colonial.

When we turn Zen into a pop-culture vibe or a totem pole into a corporate metaphor, we aren’t learning; we’re committing interpretative violence. 

Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman and Simon Ortiz’s “Towards a National Indian Literature” confront the “Bureaucracy of Erasure.” We ditch the linear “vanishing Indian” myth for the Torus—a non-linear, sovereign loop of survival where the ghosts of the past still speak in the official transcripts of the present. Along the way, we learn about MMIWR (see below) and the 1953 Termination Act (House Concurrent Resolu...

Akwaeke Emezi demonstrates how Nigeria’s contemporary writers turn our conceptual realities around. They offer a YA novel that doesn’t condescend, but more, one which shows that we should not “walk away” from Omelas, but perhaps “Stay and Hunt.”

This is also the final of three episodes which offers a broader look at the history and newer trends in Nigerian literature along with recommendations for reading. Part 1 discussed Dear Ijeawele by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Part 2 explored Wole Soyinka’s play, The Trials of Brother Jero.

Episode 6.25 –

Words from Nigeria 3 - Emezi’s Pet...

Why have so few read Soyinka? And can we find hope through his cynical dramas?

I admit I am a victim of the myth-making around me which has made Soyinka and other African writers largely invisible. Let’s see why.

Episode 6.24 –

Words from Nigeria Pt 2: Soyinka’s Tiger & Brother Jero

African writers named in this episode and some of the most rewarding reads: