5 Sept 2025

Episode 6.12 - Le Guin Part 4: The Ones Who Stay - N. K. Jemisin

Can we pull this utopia dilemma together? Or will we add even more levels of complication? When we wrestle with Le Guin, take solace knowing that others have, too, and so we enter into the dialogue of building utopia, together with its responsibilities!



As we explore today, we add Mikhail Bakhtin and George Bataille into the mix together with writers Sadoeuphemist and N. K. Jemisin!



Our Main Texts:



* Ursula K. Le Guin: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas": https://archive.org/download/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-ursula-k-leguin/The%20Ones%20Who%20Walk%20Away%20from%20Omelas%20-%20Ursula%20K%20LeGuin.pdf 

* Jemisin, N. K.: "The Ones Who Stay and Fight": https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/



Important Links Mentioned:



* Have a Question? Literary Nomads Mailbag: https://forms.gle/WKGp1YWrazNZ3TLt8 

* Sadoeuphemist: "What Else, What Else, in the Joyous City?": https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/what-else-what-else-in-the-joyous-city/

* Literary Nomads, Journey 5, "Reading and Living in Uncertainty": https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords_podcast/reading-and-living-in-uncertainty/ 



Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/le-guin-omelas/



CHAPTERS



00:00 .00     When a Place Is Not a Place

00:04:22      Opening Theme

00:04:55      From Complicity to Resolve

00:11:30      Counter-Narrative and Dialogics

00:20:05      Jemisin's "The Ones Who Stay and Fight"

00:34:03      Narratives of Power and Normalization

00:43:55      The Ambiguity of Moral Action: Bataille

00:51:28      A Call to Ethical Attentiveness

00:54:57      Book Clubs & Classroom Engagements

01:00:40      Where We Haven't Explored

01:08:51      Closing Credits



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New to Literary Nomads? Check out episode 5.00 to find out what we're all about: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords_podcast/an-introduction-and-irony/



Transcript:  https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/6-12-le-guin-part-4



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Literary Nomads is the primary 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,