By Joseph Orosco (December 29, 2021) The TrekWars@OSU collective (Dr. Randall Milstein, Dr. Joseph Orosco, and Dr. Jason Scully) gathered together again to discuss the best science fictions stories of 2021. We chose to talk about those sci-fi narratives that most impacted us in some way, either by engaging in innovative storytelling or by engaging ..
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By Ted Levine (January 28, 2020) I’m not a basketball fan, or a fan of any sport, and I don’t care very much about the lives of rich and famous people (except when I do). But the reflection below spoke to me about the complexity of feelings about people who have done some terrible things, ..
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By Rachel Wagner (November 18, 2019) The Haidmaid’s Tale television series producer Warren Littlefield says that Offred’s story “presents a chilling vision into an increasingly likely potential future.” I suggest that this insistence on relevance is more indicative of a desire to *be* predictive, to believe that media like The Handmaid’s Tale can tell us something ..
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Just Futures: Speculative Arts and Social Change November 22, 2019 Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon Keynote Talk by Dr. Grace Dillion (Anishanaabe)–one of the leaders of Indigenous Futurism The Anarres Project for Alternative Futures calls for abstracts for this multidisciplinary symposium that aims to bring together scholars, activists, and community members to consider the ways ..
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By Rocio Mercedes Alvarez (May 29, 2019) Over a week has passed. The series is wrapped up and millions of Game of Thrones fans worldwide have either had their hearts broken or their decades-long theories confirmed. To say the final season was controversial is an understatement, especially if you followed the countless super-fans on ..
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By Joseph Orosco (January 22, 2019) By now, a lot of people have heard the story of how Star Trek was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite TV show. It was, according to Nichelle Nichols, the only program he allowed his children to watch because it portrayed African Americans living in a future where they were ..
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By Joseph Orosco (November 2, 2018) Mark Bould shows us that if you know the science fiction of alien invasion you can pretty much analyze the reasoning behind Trump’s proposal for Space Force: “Vice President Mike Pence’s August 9 Space Force press junket made clear that this great big bullying blustering pussy-grab for space, this ..
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Walidah Imarisha was one of the keynote speakers at the first Opening Space for the Radical Imagination Conference at Oregon State from April 6-8, 2018. Walidah Imarisha is co-editor of the Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) book, co-published with AK Press, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements and author of IAS/AK Press book ..
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By Joseph Orosco (March 20, 2018) Every year, I teach a class which is an introduction to the discipline of peace studies. About five years ago, after teaching a successful seminar on community organizing and praxis with Anarres Project co-founder, Tony Vogt, I started to include theories of community organizing into the class. We start ..
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By Phoenix Calida (January 5, 2018) Things I don’t understand- #TheResistance on twitter. I just watched a member of the “resistance” with 20k followers and a Princess Leia avatar say that we can’t condone violence or property damage. Like did you even watch the movies?? I’ve seen various Harry Potter nerds call themselves Dumbledore’s army and ..
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By Joseph Orosco (July 12, 2017) Espen Hammer argues in the New York Times that we need to revive the utopian imagination in this era, fascinated by dystopian themes: “There are reasons, however, to think that a fully modern society cannot do without a utopian consciousness. To be modern is to be oriented toward the ..
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