{"id":18242,"date":"2026-07-27T20:28:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=18242"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:28:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:28:39","slug":"episode-685-sarah-minor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-685-sarah-minor","title":{"rendered":"Episode 685 – Sarah Minor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 685:
\nSarah Minor<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_685_-_Sarah_Minor.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“The panorama is a metaphor for the type of looking or the type of dizziness that early audiences felt. . . . It was like people in the 19th century were experiencing virtual reality for the first time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With her amazing new book, CAROUSEL: An Essay On Seeing<\/a> (Yale University Press), Sarah Minor<\/a> offers a multi-threaded exploration \u2014 lecture, memoir, and art criticism \u2014 of how we see and are seen, how our language changes with our vantage points, how all these screens are changing human consciousness (and physiology). We talk about the history of the panorama painting<\/a> and how it presages today’s phone-panopticon, the COVID-era constraints that sparked the book (and the other constraints she needs for writing), and how she struggled with a conventional literary nonfiction structure for Carousel<\/em> after years of crafting visual essays, then found its shape and voice after a live reading. We get into the comfort of white space, the humor of the Bayeux Tapestry<\/a> (not a tapestry), the benefits of having a mother who was a late-breaking medievalist, finding live performance modes, and what happened when a student heard her read from Carousel<\/em> and asked, “How do you balance historical context with reader fatigue?” We talk about how (some) students prefer lectures over discussion and how she almost made it through college without reading a contemporary writer, her shadow-performance collaboration<\/a> and why it’s important to have artistic offshoots, and more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read CAROUSEL: An Essay On Seeing<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“I’m really moved by performances that work well and so I’m interested in making that happen for others who interact with my work.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n