ALTOONA, Pa. — Penn State Altoona faculty members Brian Onishi, associate professor of philosophy, and Jeff Stoyanoff, associate professor of English and of women's, gender and sexuality studies, have released a new episode of their "Horror Joy" podcast. In the latest episode, the hosts discuss Mark Z. Danielewski’s 2000 novel “House of Leaves,” framing it as a dense, meta haunted-house text built from layered narratives.
In the book, Johnny Truant, an unreliable LA tattoo artist, edits the manuscript of the blind academic Zampanò about the possibly nonexistent documentary “The Navidson Record,” whose house contains impossible, expanding interior spaces. Onishi and Stoyanoff explore the book’s paradoxes, footnotes, shifting typography, and the Minotaur motif, arguing it satirizes academic monographs and demands active “detective work” from readers.
The hosts connect the novel to internet-era hyperlink logic, liminality and Backrooms and themes of trauma, memory, remediation and community, while noting student reactions and ending with joys found in the Navidson explorations, playfulness and characters like Tom.
The full episode can be accessed on podcast providers or on Red Circle.