The Reservation Broadcasting System

About this episode

Daniel Oppenheimer interviews Sherman Alexie about genre television and its connections to culture and politics.

My guest on the show today is the inimitable Sherman Alexie , poet, novelist, Substacker, and occasional screenwriter. I would be surprised if you don’t already know who Alexi ise, given that he’s been an award winning and best-selling writer for decades now and is almsot certainly the best known Native American writer of our time. I asked him on, naturally, to talk about genre television. I’d noticed over the past few years that whenever I posted something to Substack about whatever random genre TV I happened to watching at the moment, Alexie would often pop in to respond. It became clear that we shared an earnest love of TV as emotional comfort food, and I wanted to talk to him about that. It naturally spins off into all sorts of other issues about childhood, reservation culture, literature and other forms of media, and politics. It is, in other words, an immensely fun conversation. Hope you enjoy. Peace This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

People in this episode

Host: Daniel Oppenheimer

Guest: Sherman Alexie

Topics covered

• genre television
• Native American literature
• reservation culture
• childhood
• media
• politics

Keywords

• Sherman Alexie
• genre television
• Native American writer
• literature
• reservation culture
• media
• politics

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Substack

More episodes of Eminent Americans

• Non-Producer Character (NPC) · April 21, 2026 · 1h 27m
• I Get Schooled on Marx · March 26, 2026 · 1h 26m
• Crime Story · March 19, 2026 · 1h 36m
• Deconstructing the Broligarchy · March 5, 2026 · 1h 49m
• Jonathan Lear, Local Exemplar · February 26, 2026 · 1h 25m
• Big Tent Energy · February 19, 2026 · 59 min