eldritchhobbit

It’s wonderful to hear Martine G. Ræstad on this episode of Women At Warp discussing how the Federation’s economy works. Martine contributed the excellent essay “The Future Burning Brightly: The Dual Impact of Energy in Star Trek’s Post-Scarcity Universe” to our new Vernon Press anthology Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier. Episode 234: How Does the Federation Economy Work? Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier View the full post.

I’m delighted to share that both of my co-edited academic anthologies with Vernon Press are now available in hardback, ebook, and (new!) paperback format: STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER and STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY. More information is here. ALTALT View the full post.

Good mail day! New Palgrave Macmillan publications related to my current research/book project. ALT View the full post.

Thesis Theater: Laurel Stevens, “An Awareness of Debts: Dark Academia and its Source-Texts” Congratulations to Laurel M. Stevens! It’s been a true joy to be Laurel’s M.A. thesis director. View the full post.

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! View the full post.

My latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment is now available on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast. I discuss the concept of the timeslip. ALT ALTALT View the full post.

Nominations are open for the 2024 Hugo Awards. Several works with which I’m involved are eligible, so here is my Hugos 2024 post. Eligible for Best Related Work (both published by Vernon Press in 2023): Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier (edited by Amy H. Sturgis and Emily Strand for Vernon Press, 2023) Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away (edited by Emily Strand and Amy H. Sturgis for Vernon Press, 2023) Also, StarShipSofa is eligible for Best Fancast! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have read and/or listened! ALT ALT View the full post.

This year I’ve been delighted to join SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. This week I’m wrapping up teaching my first module, which is on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It’s been so much fun! Currently my March module candidate is up for vote for until 2/1. It’s on A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. I hope you’ll join me! More information on my offered modules is here. View the full post.

Current mood: listening to Shirley Jackson’s daughter sing the murder ballad “The Grattan Murders,” which appears in Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, as her mother sang it to her. View the full post.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Speculating about our AI Future with Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, and Martha Wells. After registering This promises to be a terrific online event! Thursday, January 11, 2024. View the full post.

ashleywritesstuff: Trek Talks – The annual streaming telethon inspired by Star Trek to benefit Hollywood Food Coalition Trek Talks is coming! It’s practically here! Join me for Trek Talks 3, an annual Star Trek telethon in support of The Hollywood Food Coalition on January 13, 2024. View the full post.

Vernon Press - Call for Book Chapter Proposals: “Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek” FYI, here’s a new call for papers for the academic anthology Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek. 🖖 View the full post.

ACAFANS: The Rigorous Study of Star Wars It was a delight to join my co-editor Emily Strand to talk about our new anthology Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away with Josh of Trash Compactor: A Star Wars Podcast. View the full post.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson said it all in “Ring Out, Wild Bells”: Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace… Read the complete poem here. View the full post.

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. View the full post.

On this day in 1916, the great Shirley Jackson was born. Here’s a little piece I wrote earlier this year about teaching Jackson’s remarkable novel Hangsaman. It’s posted at “Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century,” an online resource investigating the past and future landscapes of Shirley Jackson studies. I’m looking forward to teaching The Haunting of Hill House in January! Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951) by Amy H. Sturgis View the full post.

I’ll be starting 2024 with two visits to Hill House! I’m joining SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. My first modules include The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (January) and its authorized sequel, A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand (February). Registration is now open for January’s module. Voting is now open for February’s module. Here are more details. I hope to see you in SPACE! ALT ALT View the full post.

It was a delight to join Emily Strand, with whom I co-edited the anthologies Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away (both 2023 from Vernon Press), to talk Star Trek and Star Wars with the Dice in Mind podcast. Dice in Mind is a podcast hosted by Brad Browne and Jason Kaufman that explores the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, and creativity through interviews with leading creatives. Episode 106: Drs. Amy Sturgis and Emily Strand | Dice in Mind View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: 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 The second part of this two-part review is now here: StarShipSofa 720 Dominica Phetteplace | StarShipSofa View the full post.

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 View the full post.

ALT On November 18, 1897, junior student Bertha Lane Mellish vanished from Mount Holyoke College. Her disappearance remains an unsolved mystery. I’m currently working on a research project that involves the Mellish case. I’ll be posting more! Today it feels especially important to say her name. ALT View the full post.

ALT Book mood. These novels were inspired by the 1924 Leopold and Loeb case. From bottom to top, they are These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever (2020), Compulsion by Meyer Levin (1956), Little Brother Fate by Mary-Carter Roberts (1957), and Nothing but the Night by James Yaffe (1957). View the full post.

unamccormack: A privilege to take part in this BBC Free Thinking on Ursula K Le Guin and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”. BBC Radio 3 - Free Thinking, Ursula Le Guin and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas View the full post.

Corrupted Bloodlines and the Gothic Ancestry of The Empire Strikes Back View the full post.

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 View the full post.