Who We Are

Champs Not Chumps is an audiopodcast featuring interviews with people who are pursuing creative, social, or intellectual projects.  Tom Dodson and Alana Kumbier produce the show and take turns hosting.

6: Fanspeak

Anne MooreJust in time for the new season of Lost, Alana talks with popular culture scholar Anne Moore about television, fan communities, and the pleasures of serial narratives.

Anne's work questions the conventional association of narrative closure with artistry; she celebrates, instead, the open-ended pleasures of soaps, prime-time dramas, and serialized space operas.  She also uncovers connections between contemporary television shows and Victorian novels, juxtaposing The Wire's depiction of inner city Baltimore with Charles Dickens's portrayal of London's back alleys.

5: Flashback

Nikhil ChopraTom talks with very short story writer Christine Gentry about flash fiction and an imagined memoir based in her father's life.

The concentration and brevity of her stories is anything but an accommodation to the short attention span of the contemporary reader.  Instead, Gentry's one-page pieces ask you to read closely, fill in gaps, and actively contribute to the meaning of the story.  Her longer project seeks to explore and articulate the untold stories of a reticent father.