October 19: How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao (2021)
Quote:
A kid at our school died, and my parents’ biggest concern is my calc grade. Smh —Anon
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October 18: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (2017)
Quote 1:
But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart — by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.
Quote 2:
You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.
Some of the university and conference talks I gave this year are now online.
Why You Should Read The Last Man by Mary Shelley
Why You Should Read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“A Fortnight in the Wilderness” with Alexis de Tocqueville
“Missing Students & Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia" (presented at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference).
View this presentation here.
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New Publication in 2024: An essay, “‘Lifting Old Curses’: The mirror dance of The Flowers of Vashnoi and The Mountains of Mourning” in Short But Concentrated #2: a second essay symposium on the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, edited by @unamccormack.
New in Paperback in 2024 (previously published in hardback & ebook in 2023): Two books, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away, both co-edited with Emily Strand.
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2024 Wrap-Up: Podcasts
Thank you to all of the podcasts that invited me on this year!
My “Looking Back on Genre History” science fiction segment ran each month on StarShipSofa.
I talked to Potterversity about my book chapter “Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia”; to Trash Compactor and New Books Network about my book Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away; and to New Books Network about my book Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier.
I also talked about Alexis de Tocqueville with the Vital Remnants podcast and Mary Shelley (twice, once about The Last Man and once about Frankenstein) with The McConnell Center podcast.
Links to all of these podcast episodes are here.
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I’ve been contributing my “Looking Back on Genre History” segments to the StarShipSofa podcast for 15 years now. All of my past segments are listed (with their topics and links!) on the “Podcasting” page of my website. (Scroll down to the “Looking Back on Genre History” section.)
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These two novels — The Button Field by Gail Husch (2014) and Killingly by Katharine Beutner (2023) — were inspired by the same real-life unsolved mystery, the disappearance of student Bertha Mellish from Mount Holyoke College in 1897.
I found The Button Field to be haunting, and now I’m looking forward to reading Killingly.
ALT
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On my “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the latest episode of the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss the anniversary of the science fiction series Blake’s 7.
StarShipSofa 704 Ramez Yoakeim | StarShipSofa
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October is almost here!
I’m currently working on new academic projects related to Dark Academia (the subgenre, not the aesthetic), so for Halloween month I’ll be posting a different DA title each day with a haunting/atmospheric quote. I hope you’ll enjoy the recs!
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Now that Anna Torv’s great work on The Last of Us is encouraging some folks to (re)discover the brilliant series Fringe, I’m reminded what a delight and joy it was to contribute the essay “In Search of Fringe’s Literary Ancestors” to Kevin R. Grazier’s anthology about the show, Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, and Mad Scientists.
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It’s not every day that you and your brilliant co-editor Emily Strand submit your completed book to your publisher, but today is that day for me!
More information on STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY, the sibling to our previously-submitted and also-forthcoming academic anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, will be coming soon!
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In my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss Guardians of the Whills, Andor, and local resistance in Star Wars.
StarShipSofa 712 Laird Barron | StarShipSofa
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In my “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the latest episode of StarShipSofa, I discuss resources and recommendations for reading Ukrainian speculative fiction in translation. ??
StarShipSofa No 683 Paul Alex Gray | StarShipSofa
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ICYMI, my talk “Whitechapel ‘What Ifs’: Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fiction” is now on Rippercast.
Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Podcast - Dr. Amy Sturgis -Whitechapel What Ifs- Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fictio
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I’m excited to share more information about my Fall 2022 online class for Signum University. The course page is coming soon. I’ll be posting links and details!
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I’m delighted to talk Star Trek at an event by Licking County Library on Jan. 18, 2022 at 7pm Eastern. This event is live, online, and free to everyone.
My presentation: “Empowered Minds: How Star Trek Changed the World and Why It Still Matters”
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Empowered Minds: How Star Trek Changed the World and Why It Still Matters. After registering, yo
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I’m delighted to share that I’ll be giving a paper at the upcoming Realizing Resistance Episode III: The Expanding Universe conference on Star Wars.
My talk will be “‘They Walked without Speaking’: GUARDIANS OF THE WHILLS, ANDOR, and Local Resistance.
More on the conference is here: dcsco-op.org/rriii/
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I’m delighted to be giving a talk on “Finding History in Star Wars” for Morse Library on Thursday, May 12 at 6:30pm Eastern. The event is online, registration is free, and everyone is welcome!
VIRTUAL - Finding History in Star Wars
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I was sorry to learn of the death of director He Ping last month. I’ve treated myself to a rewatch of his memorable wuxia/Western film Warriors of Heaven and Earth in tribute. (It’s pictured here with some of the other movies in my “films by or with Jiang Wen” collection.)
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I was delighted to talk Star Trek and Star Wars with Michael Boyce on the latest episode of the Geek4 podcast.
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Geek4 — Michael W. Boyce, PhD
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