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Post-Update: Forum Issues
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About this blog

Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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New Star Wars Podcast Interview!

Many thanks to Meg Dowell of “Now This Is Lit: A Star Wars Books Podcast” for having my co-editor Emily Strand and me on the latest episode to talk about our new scholarly anthology Star Wars: Essays Exploring A Galaxy Far, Far Away! ALT Here is the episode:
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New Star Trek Interview!

It was a joy to join my co-editor Emily Strand to talk about our new book Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier with the New Books Network podcast! Emily Strand and Amy H. Sturgis, “Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier” (Vernon Press, 2023) - New Books Network
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New essay on the Vorkosigan saga!

I am very happy to share that my essay “‘Lifting Old Curses’: The mirror dance of The Flowers of Vashnoi and The Mountains of Mourning” has been published in Short But Concentrated #2: a second essay symposium on the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, edited by the brilliant @unamccormack. The ebook version is free for download here. ALT
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New Dark Academia Presentation

I am very happy to report that I will be presenting my paper “Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia” at the Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture conference (May 2-3, 2024) sponsored by the Popular Culture Research Network. This talk is related to my current work-in-progress book project. I’m looking forward to it!
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New Dark Academia Essay!

I’m delighted to say that my essay “Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia” has just been published in the new academic anthology Potterversity from McFarland. In the piece I define Dark Academia, distinguish the storytelling genre and its history from the aesthetic, and consider why there is an explosion of new DA storytelling happening now. (One reason of many, I argue, is that authors such as Sarah Gailey, Naomi Novik, Victoria Lee, and R.F. Kuang, among others, were both inspired by the Harry Potter series and moved to push back against J.K. Rowling’s positions through their own works, which offer fresh, diverse perspectives and insightful, timely critiques.) ALT ALT
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New “Looking Back on Genre History”

My latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment is the first of a two-part review of the anthology AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, and Sarah Dillon, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. It’s now up on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast. ALT ALT StarShipSofa 718 Lincoln Michel | StarShipSofa
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New “Looking Back on Genre History”

On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 754), I discuss (in a spoiler-free way!) Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, intellectual history, and genre references. Here is the link! ALT ALT ALT
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New “Looking Back on Genre History”

On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 756), I discuss two pioneering dystopian novels published fifty years apart, works with much to say to each other and to us in 2025. Here is the link!
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My latest “Looking Back on Genre History”

StarShipSofa 758 Pedro Iniguez On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa (Episode 758), I discuss science fiction, nuclear weapons, and the ongoing relevance of the classic Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald.
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Meet The Last Man!

Meet The Last Man! In March 2024, I will be offering the module “Meet The Last Man” with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University. Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I’m really looking forward to exploring it with students! Here is more information.
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Meet The Last Man!

I’m delighted to say that it’s back! My month-long “Meet The Last Man” module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University is currently up for candidacy for June 2025. Voting is open through May 1. Those who sign up will have a voice in the scheduling of the live discussion sessions. Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I’m really looking forward to exploring it with students! Here is more information.
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Many thanks to @ashleywritesstuff and Mike Slamer of We Are Starfleet (hear the episode here), …

It’s time for my periodic “Thank you!” to those in the Star Trek and Science Fiction communities who have helped us get the word out about our new anthology, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier, thus far. More details about our book (including the table of contents, reviews, etc.) are here on the Vernon Press website. (Note: The coupon code CFC10822213C4 provides a 24% “new release!” discount at the Vernon Press website. In addition, the book is also available from all major booksellers and for request via libraries as an ebook or hardcover. Library requests help us a great deal!) If you work with a periodical, podcast, blog, or website and might be interested in reviewing our book or talking to us or our contributors, please get in contact with me. I may be able to arrange a digital review copy for you! The easiest way to reach me is through this contact form on my website. Many thanks to @ashleywritesstuff and Mike Slamer of We Are Starfleet (hear the episode here), Brandi Jackola of Boldly Go (hear the episode here), Jarrah Hodge of Women At Warp (read the review here), and The Honorable Kavura of StarPodLog (read the review here) for their wonderful conversations, reviews, and support! ALT
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Long Live the Halflings!

Today is the anniversary of the Long-Expected Party celebrating the eleventy-first birthday of Bilbo Baggins and the coming of age of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. It was on this day that Bilbo gave his infamous birthday speech, saying “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve,” before disappearing from the Shire forever.
Also on this day, according to the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, 99-year-old Samwise Gamgee rode out from Bag End for the final time. He was last seen in Middle-Earth by his daughter Elanor, to whom he presented the Red Book. According to tradition, he then went to the Grey Havens and passed over the Sea, last of the Ringbearers.     And now, in honor of the Baggins Birthdays, the departure of Samwise, and Hobbits in general, here is the song of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s (and, for that matter, world literature’s) greatest heroes, Samwise Gamgee, when in Cirith Ungol. In this very difficult times, I find myself returning to these verses in particular. They are the epitome of Hobbits and of hope. In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ‘tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey’s end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.  - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

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Join me in SPACE!

I’m delighted to be joining SPACE (Signum Adult Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. My upcoming modules in early 2024 include The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand, and The Last Man by Mary Shelley. I hope to see you in SPACE! Registration is now open for January’s module, The Haunting of Hill House. More information on my offered modules is here. ALT
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