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 treated equally and with dignity…
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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 effort to Make America Great…
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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 Angels with Dirty Faces: Three…
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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 the term by looking at…
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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 compare the mangerine to Voldemort….
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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 future. It is to be…
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By Joe Lowndes (January 29, 2017) As Steve Bannon’s central role in the White house becomes increasingly clear, we are struck by panic about who he is and how to understand his power. I increasingly think the source of it is to be found neither in his Huntingtonian worldview nor his self-described Leninist orientation toward power, but rather Hollywood. Screenwriter/producer…
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To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series, the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures presents a program of events that highlight the importance of this landmark science fiction franchise for advancing social justice and pushing the boundaries of the radical imagination. Here is a listing of the events planned for Fall term 2016: …
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By Arun Gupta (January 5, 2016) This sums up my feelings about Star Wars: a fun ride, well-executed, and utterly unoriginal.
By Joseph Orosco (November 4, 2015) Adam Frank, thinking about the success of Matt Damon’s new film The Martian, asks whether it would be moral to explore and colonize Mars. One of his concerns has to do with how we will treat any possible life forms that we encounter there, even at the microbial level.
By Chris Crass (October 20, 2015) While the #BoycottStarWarsVII is easy to laugh at, and the diversity = white genocide people help expose the white supremacist roots of white fears and resentment of multiracial democracy, there are two key points to remember: