David sits down with Dr. Amy H. Sturgis, professor of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gothic literature at Signum University and a contributor to the Hugo Award-winning podcast StarShipSofa, for a wide-ranging conversation about Star Trek, Star Wars, and the stories we need.
They explore why both franchises have retained such fierce cultural grip across generations, unpacking the co-creative tradition that has defined Star Trek fandom, the danger of nostalgic and entitled fandoms, and the distinct but complementary ways the two franchises ask us to think about power, agency, and the future. The conversation also touches on Amy's two co-edited Vernon Press anthologies, the acafan identity, dark academia as a Gothic tradition, and her current recommendations across television, fiction, and music.
Guest Bio
Dr. Amy H. Sturgis is a professor of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gothic literature at Signum University. She has authored or edited more than a dozen books, contributed over sixty scholarly essays, and holds a PhD in Intellectual History from Vanderbilt University. Since 2008, she has contributed her "Looking Back on Genre History" segment to the Hugo Award-winning podcast StarShipSofa. Her most recent books are two co-edited anthologies: Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away (both Vernon Press, 2023).
Website: amyhsturgis.com
Mastodon: @DrAHSturgis@Universidon
Amy's Three Things
Vienna Blood (TV series, PBS Masterpiece)
https://www.pbs.org/show/vienna-blood/
The Liebermann Papers novels by Frank Tallis https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/MXL/max-liebermann/
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/sunrise_on_the_reaping.htm
In Times of Dragons by Tori Amos
Also Mentioned
Signum University SPACE Program (Adult Continuing Education) https://signumuniversity.org/non-degree-programs/adult-continuing-education/
Heat Death — Decline and Fall series by Asher and Saul Elbein
https://heat-death.ghost.io/tag/decline-and-fall/
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00:17 --> 00:27 [SPEAKER_01]: When Amy H. Sturgis was 13 years old, she sat in a darkened theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and watched a stage production called Black Elk Speaks.
00:27 --> 00:37 [SPEAKER_01]: The cast included two actors, Will Samson, and West Judy, who would go on to become iconic faces of Indigenous American storytelling in Hollywood.
00:37 --> 00:40 [SPEAKER_01]: She described the night as intense and wrenching.
00:41 --> 00:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But Amy had already learned by then that stories carried that kind of weight.
00:46 --> 00:53 [SPEAKER_01]: She had grown up watching Star Trek before she could read, raised by parents who understood that the future was a place worth imagining carefully.
00:54 --> 01:02 [SPEAKER_01]: By the time she was old enough to write about it, she'd found a word for what she was, an acropham, an academic who never stopped being a fan.
01:03 --> 01:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Her life's work is an argument that those two things were never really in conflict.
01:08 --> 01:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Amage Sturgis is a professor of science fiction, fantasy and gossip literature at Signum University.
01:14 --> 01:24 [SPEAKER_01]: She is authored or edited more than a dozen books contributed to over 60 scholarly essays and holds a PhD in intellectual history from Vanderbilt University.
01:25 --> 01:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Since 2008, she has contributed her looking back on Jean-Rahistory segment to the Hugo Award-winning podcast, Starship Sofa.
01:35 --> 01:39 [SPEAKER_01]: She's even been referred to as the Neal-Degress Tyson of Science Fiction.
01:40 --> 01:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Her most recent books are two co-edited anthologies, one on Star Trek, and one on Star Wars, that she describes characteristically not as the last word, but as an invitation to keep the conversation going.
01:54 --> 01:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Sturgis, so glad you accepted our invitation to keep the conversation going.
01:58 --> 02:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Lorehouse.
02:00 --> 02:04 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for the invitation I'm delighted to be here and I'm looking forward to talking to you today.
02:04 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
02:05 --> 02:17 [SPEAKER_01]: So a little note on how this interview came to be, one of our regular subscribers and listeners was on our discord.
02:17 --> 02:26 [SPEAKER_01]: and mentioned that a blog post that I had written about Andor had been dropped in your course at Signum University.
02:26 --> 02:37 [SPEAKER_01]: That's my Mirror's Edge blog post and that's connecting using NEMICS manifesto to connect season one and season two.
02:38 --> 02:40 [SPEAKER_01]: And so shout out to Marine for that connection.
02:40 --> 02:53 [SPEAKER_01]: And today we're definitely going to be talking about Star Trek and Star Wars, but I wanted to set a little context for the world that we're inhabiting right now.
02:53 --> 02:55 [SPEAKER_01]: We're at Star Trek 60 years.
02:56 --> 02:59 [SPEAKER_01]: This is a 60th year anniversary of Star Trek.
02:59 --> 03:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And also this year is the first Star Wars movie in seven years in that very long-running franchise.
03:07 --> 03:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And we really are in an age, I don't know what the, if a pockled name would be, you know, the answer preceding or the, I guess maybe the franchise scene of a storytelling where big franchises dominate our storytelling space.
03:26 --> 03:36 [SPEAKER_01]: But then we also have the twin forces of institution and algorithmic flattening that are happening and are definitely shaping the world and the media that we're consuming.
03:36 --> 03:43 [SPEAKER_01]: As well as the rise of thinking machines, yes, Frank, we have not forgotten about you.
03:43 --> 03:47 [SPEAKER_01]: We'll be seeing you later this year with Dune, Dune 3 and Dune propathy.
03:48 --> 03:51 [SPEAKER_01]: So in this world of a lot of.
03:52 --> 03:56 [SPEAKER_01]: forces shaping our modern mythology story telling.
03:56 --> 04:08 [SPEAKER_01]: There are still institutions and people who are sort of keeping the home fires lit about honest intellectual pursuits and one of those places is Signum University.
04:08 --> 04:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I've come in contact with you.
04:10 --> 04:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was wondering if you just tell the listeners a little bit about Signum because
04:16 --> 04:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I often feel that signal in the lower-house community have a lot of overlaps, and interconnections, not only with people, but in terms of our approach and our attitudes towards...
04:27 --> 04:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, definitely.
04:29 --> 04:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Speculate a fiction.
04:30 --> 04:30 [SPEAKER_05]: Definitely.
04:31 --> 04:33 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.
04:33 --> 04:43 [SPEAKER_05]: So, Signum University is a nonprofit online graduate school where based in New Hampshire, but we serve a worldwide student body.
04:44 --> 04:54 [SPEAKER_05]: And Signum focuses on literature and language that's particularly imaginative, speculative literature, and classical languages.
04:55 --> 05:03 [SPEAKER_05]: I teach intellectual history of speculative fiction, specifically in the subjects of
05:03 --> 05:08 [SPEAKER_05]: And there are different aspects to Signum University.
05:09 --> 05:11 [SPEAKER_05]: I teach in the Master's Program.
05:11 --> 05:14 [SPEAKER_05]: So there is a Master's of Arts there.
05:15 --> 05:17 [SPEAKER_01]: And an accredited Master's Program.
05:17 --> 05:21 [SPEAKER_05]: It is approved by New Hampshire.
05:21 --> 05:24 [SPEAKER_05]: And we are currently pursuing full accreditation.
05:24 --> 05:24 [SPEAKER_05]: Gotcha.
05:24 --> 05:26 [SPEAKER_05]: That is in the pipeline.
05:26 --> 05:29 [SPEAKER_05]: And we've already crossed several hurdles for that.
05:29 --> 05:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Great.
05:29 --> 05:39 [SPEAKER_05]: But our master students have already been accepted in PhD programs in major universities, so it's good news all the way around.
05:39 --> 06:07 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I teach their traditional 12 week full semester courses and I also direct master's thesis students at the thesis level and I should note there that we have students who are pursuing their degrees, but we also allow students who are interested in sitting in on classes on auditing them just for the love of them, those students come as well.
06:07 --> 06:10 [SPEAKER_05]: And then there are other aspects of Signum.
06:10 --> 06:21 [SPEAKER_05]: I believe you can access just the lectures from courses if you're not interested in sitting in on the live discussions and taking part in a full, you know, semesters work.
06:22 --> 06:29 [SPEAKER_05]: But I also teach in space, which is Signum portals for adult continuing education.
06:29 --> 06:30 [SPEAKER_01]: I have to interject here.
06:30 --> 06:42 [SPEAKER_01]: I love the branding for that and every time I talk about it because I'm taking I just started a space course and I always like to say, I'm going to space.
06:42 --> 06:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
06:43 --> 06:45 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a new purpose.
06:45 --> 06:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
06:46 --> 06:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
06:47 --> 06:48 [SPEAKER_01]: That is the bedrock for that.
06:49 --> 06:52 [SPEAKER_05]: I've been teaching in the master's program really.
06:52 --> 06:53 [SPEAKER_05]: I've been teaching
06:54 --> 07:00 [SPEAKER_05]: with Signum since 2012, that I've just started the Space Program in 2024, and that's been fantastic.
07:00 --> 07:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And that's not for degree-seeking students, although I certainly have degree-seeking students from my master's courses who come over to Space, but those are usually one month modules, and there are variety of different kinds.
07:16 --> 07:18 [SPEAKER_05]: The ones I teach are hybrid.
07:18 --> 07:28 [SPEAKER_05]: Which means that I do a lecture once a week that people can access any time they want and then we have a live discussion every week.
07:28 --> 07:28 [SPEAKER_05]: And
07:29 --> 07:42 [SPEAKER_05]: They are one month modules, so four weeks, but then sometimes there are series, so I have done five month series, I have done three month series, but each module is a standalone within those series.
07:43 --> 07:53 [SPEAKER_05]: And so between teaching degree seeking students and teaching the adult continuing education, we're covering a wonderful cross section.
07:53 --> 07:54 [SPEAKER_05]: I've had students from
07:55 --> 08:10 [SPEAKER_05]: multiple continents, and I've had students from a variety of different educational backgrounds and professional positions, all of whom bring remarkable insights and experience and ideas.
08:10 --> 08:16 [SPEAKER_05]: To these discussions, we take these ideas seriously, we take the literature seriously, the storytelling seriously.
08:16 --> 08:19 [SPEAKER_05]: at the films and television series, seriously.
08:19 --> 08:32 [SPEAKER_05]: And it's incredibly rewarding to have these conversations across time zones, across, you know, national and continental borders across generations.
08:33 --> 08:34 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I found very rewarding.
08:34 --> 08:45 [SPEAKER_05]: I've also taught undergraduate courses at brick and mortar schools, but my relationship with Signum has been a really
08:45 --> 08:51 [SPEAKER_05]: conversation and genre, the whole science fiction and fantasy and Gothic world.
08:51 --> 09:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And some of our listeners might know, have had contact with Signum peripherally through Marilyn Arpecila, who's one of our regular co-hosts.
09:01 --> 09:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
09:02 --> 09:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think most recently she covered foundation with one of our main hosts, John last year, and she's on any number of podcasts at various times.
09:15 --> 09:18 [SPEAKER_01]: But she has her own podcast that's tied to
09:18 --> 09:34 [SPEAKER_01]: the Rings of Power television series with Dr. Sarah Brown and they talk about rings and rituals and they talk about the rituals that they see on the show and sort of break down each episode and examine ritual and then how ritual.
09:34 --> 09:40 [SPEAKER_01]: plays a part in our our real lives and but it's exactly as it is example by that by the show.
09:42 --> 09:46 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I really encourage folks to check out I'll put a link in the show notes for the space program.
09:46 --> 10:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I just started my first course that is looking at how scenes and sequences are edited and put together and how meaning is derived through the constructed language of that and so it's really exciting
10:04 --> 10:05 [SPEAKER_05]: So band-tastic.
10:05 --> 10:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
10:06 --> 10:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So your current scholarship you have two books that were published a couple of years ago.
10:14 --> 10:23 [SPEAKER_01]: Star Trek essays exploring the final frontier and Star Wars essays exploring the galaxy, a galaxy far, far away.
10:24 --> 10:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And these are co-edited and it's their collection of essays
10:33 --> 10:36 [SPEAKER_01]: You want to tell us a little bit about these two books?
10:36 --> 10:37 [SPEAKER_05]: I would love to.
10:37 --> 10:37 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
10:38 --> 10:43 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm very happy to say that they have done well enough now to warrant.
10:44 --> 10:48 [SPEAKER_05]: paperback copies as hardback and ebook copies.
10:49 --> 10:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
10:50 --> 10:55 [SPEAKER_05]: So I should know that my co-editor, the wonderful Emily Strand, is also a signum person.
10:55 --> 10:56 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, fabulous.
10:56 --> 10:56 [SPEAKER_05]: The person.
10:57 --> 11:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And she was very kind to invite me into this project.
11:02 --> 11:04 [SPEAKER_05]: She had done a fantastic.
11:05 --> 11:20 [SPEAKER_05]: scholarly presentation at a conference and someone from Brennan Press, which is a wonderful academic press said, hey, are you interested in editing a work on Star Trek and Star Wars?
11:20 --> 11:22 [SPEAKER_05]: And she said, yes, and
11:22 --> 11:23 [SPEAKER_05]: invited me to be her co-editor.
11:24 --> 11:35 [SPEAKER_05]: And once we started our call for papers and got amazing responses from scholars all over the world, we realized we had two books, not one.
11:35 --> 11:39 [SPEAKER_05]: And so we broke those into Star Trek and Star Wars.
11:39 --> 11:41 [SPEAKER_05]: I kind of took the lead on the Star Trek.
11:41 --> 11:43 [SPEAKER_05]: She kind of took the lead on the Star Wars.
11:43 --> 11:46 [SPEAKER_05]: She contributed and essay the Star Wars.
11:46 --> 12:13 [SPEAKER_05]: anthology and I contributed one to the Star Trek anthology and they are peer-reviewed, you know, went through the whole blind, um, peer-review academic process, but what was incredibly rewarding about that was seeing scholars from around the world who were approaching these texts in very different ways
12:15 --> 12:24 [SPEAKER_05]: intellectual tools right coming from different disciplines being involved in this conversation and just how vibrant the conversation is.
12:24 --> 12:31 [SPEAKER_05]: We had multiple generations of scholars represented in these works and they have gone on then to
12:33 --> 12:38 [SPEAKER_05]: be interviewed on various podcasts and in different places about their work in these books.
12:38 --> 12:50 [SPEAKER_05]: But what we had hoped for most of all was to show the depth and breadth of the conversation as it is in these pivotal moments in both of these franchises lives.
12:50 --> 13:03 [SPEAKER_05]: And also to issue this invitation to join the conversation, and I think several of these are essays are particularly reaching out to new folks.
13:03 --> 13:19 [SPEAKER_05]: We wanted this to be a very rigorous process with projects that academically stood up very well, could be used in the classroom in classes like we teach, but also accessible to fans who are just genuinely interested in the material.
13:20 --> 13:31 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that the books speak to that that there is a cross-section of people who are interested in taking these ideas seriously.
13:32 --> 13:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Indeed.
13:32 --> 13:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's actually kind of a small world of publications that pursue these.
13:39 --> 13:40 [SPEAKER_01]: I have, oh yes.
13:40 --> 13:48 [SPEAKER_01]: For example, I have Alien and Philosophy, I infest, therefore, I am, and it's about philosophy and the Alien universe.
13:48 --> 13:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I've had a couple of interviews with a gentleman that retired Lieutenant Colonel from the U.S. Army, who was part of a co-edited couple of anthologies.
13:58 --> 14:11 [SPEAKER_01]: strategy start strategy strikes back and winning West rose both of those are looking at military history and strategies that are represented in both of those properties.
14:11 --> 14:17 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a whole I think we're at an age now where speculative fiction popular fiction.
14:17 --> 14:25 [SPEAKER_01]: There's enough history and depth to the material and I think we'll talk about this a little bit later about meaning, making and myth-making.
14:26 --> 14:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But there's enough going on now and we have enough time writing all these things that we can really investigate and dig deep into these topics that are really worthy of scholarly approach.
14:40 --> 14:41 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I agree.
14:41 --> 14:45 [SPEAKER_05]: And we have distance from some of them
14:46 --> 14:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Good point.
14:47 --> 15:04 [SPEAKER_05]: That allows us to analyze, but also then to learn, for example, the essay that I contributed to the Star Trek volume was when I had been carrying around with me for some time about enterprise, but it happened to be.
15:04 --> 15:15 [SPEAKER_05]: perfect moment to reevaluate enterprise and the storytelling in the enterprise series within Star Trek because new Star Trek works.
15:15 --> 15:23 [SPEAKER_05]: We're starting to incorporate references to enterprise as this key text in the larger.
15:24 --> 15:40 [SPEAKER_05]: world of Star Trek and so it was a perfect moment to step in and say we have enough time now behind us that we can look back and reevaluate this and say what do we do with the lessons we've learned from the storytelling in this particular series.
15:40 --> 15:54 [SPEAKER_05]: So having the opportunity over time to go back to these texts and mind them while they're still living stories because they're still
15:54 --> 15:56 [SPEAKER_05]: all of these stories matter.
15:56 --> 16:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And now, as you point out, we're also at a point where the people who grew up as fans are now the official creators.
16:03 --> 16:09 [SPEAKER_05]: And so they're going back, and their work is not only new work, but it's also commentary on what came before.
16:10 --> 16:16 [SPEAKER_01]: makes it two things really quick before we take a break and then we'll get into talking about Star Trek and Star Wars specifically.
16:16 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_01]: One, I was listening to a podcast that you and your co-editor did promoting the books on the new book, uh, Network Podcast.
16:27 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
16:27 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
16:27 --> 16:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And you were, I heard you talking about enterprise and enterprise had been a title that I have kind of skipped over.
16:34 --> 16:36 [SPEAKER_01]: I just kind of bounced off.
16:36 --> 16:46 [SPEAKER_01]: I was just like Scott, but I don't need to see Scott back, you're acting heroic in an enterprise title and I was like, oh, okay, well, if if.
16:46 --> 16:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Amy Sturgis gives it a her seal of approval.
16:48 --> 16:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I should consider it.
16:50 --> 16:52 [SPEAKER_01]: So I watched the first episode last night.
16:52 --> 16:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm hooked.
16:52 --> 16:53 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very interested.
16:53 --> 16:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there is some dated material there in terms of presentation.
16:59 --> 16:59 [SPEAKER_01]: But it has an idea.
16:59 --> 17:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's it has a point of view and an idea that it's working on.
17:03 --> 17:05 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's something we should talk about when we get to start track.
17:06 --> 17:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And as well, another podcast within our network of podcasts never mind the music.
17:14 --> 17:35 [SPEAKER_01]: We, I went on their podcast and it's a psychologist and a music professor and they talk about music and they sort of analyze music and song patterns and beats and melodies, but then how a song might reference different psychology related, psychologically related aspects of human condition.
17:36 --> 17:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, they invited me on for one of their podcasts and we talked about the generational music theorem which is an interesting idea about
17:44 --> 17:52 [SPEAKER_01]: how music transfers from generation to generation, and when we see certain shifts.
17:52 --> 17:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's an interesting theory in that it works to a degree, but it doesn't work in some areas and some aspects.
17:59 --> 17:59 [SPEAKER_01]: But,
17:59 --> 18:15 [SPEAKER_01]: We're such a, we have such a short time of modern music coming out of the blues and that sort of 1940s 1930s era of music where it's hard to tell what's going on.
18:15 --> 18:24 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't have enough depth on it yet, but what made me think of that was your comment just now about the fact that the people who
18:24 --> 18:37 [SPEAKER_01]: grew up watching Star Trek and Star Wars are now the not only the creators, not only hired to write or produce, but are now actually the show runners, the keepers of the shows.
18:38 --> 18:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, setting the direction rather than just working on them, just being a functionary.
18:43 --> 18:47 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a very interesting inflection point that we're at right now.
18:48 --> 18:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Agreed.
18:49 --> 18:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:50 --> 18:50 [SPEAKER_01]: So interesting.
18:51 --> 18:52 [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, let's take a quick break.
18:53 --> 18:56 [SPEAKER_01]: And then when we come back, let's start talking about Star Trek.
18:56 --> 19:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really curious about your personal history with the franchise, but then I want to get into these questions of like, what are the sources of the potency?
19:04 --> 19:06 [SPEAKER_01]: What are the valence's to society?
19:06 --> 19:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Why do we have 60 years of Star Trek?
19:09 --> 19:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And why is it not slowing down?
19:10 --> 19:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Despite whatever franchise and big business things are going on.
19:14 --> 19:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, when we come back, we'll get right into that.
19:17 --> 19:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Great.
19:29 --> 19:30 [SPEAKER_01]: and we're back.
19:31 --> 19:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So Star Trek at 60 years old, kind of a big deal.
19:37 --> 19:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It is a property that has shaped not only the cultural life of a couple of generations, but it's interesting
19:52 --> 19:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And it'd be interesting to read your book.
19:54 --> 19:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't gotten my hands on your book yet, but I'm gonna track it, especially now that it's in paperback.
19:58 --> 19:59 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna track it down.
20:00 --> 20:15 [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd be interesting to understand how Star Trek is how Star Trek has affected our sense of ethics and morality in our modern life.
20:16 --> 20:19 [SPEAKER_01]: But in your personal history, you grew up.
20:20 --> 20:31 [SPEAKER_01]: We're Star Trek and watching it as a young child and I think it sounds like it's shaped your life and your approach to not only your scholarship but also to the person you are today.
20:31 --> 20:33 [SPEAKER_05]: Very much so.
20:33 --> 20:41 [SPEAKER_05]: I had a sort of one-two punch from science fiction with Star Trek and then Star Wars.
20:41 --> 20:43 [SPEAKER_05]: But Star Trek was the first mover for me.
20:43 --> 20:46 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm pretty sure I was listening to
20:46 --> 20:49 [SPEAKER_05]: reruns of the original series from the womb.
20:49 --> 20:59 [SPEAKER_05]: But I know that as a very small child I was watching reruns of the original series and the original run of the animated series, simultaneous.
21:00 --> 21:06 [SPEAKER_01]: I think we must be of the same generation because I have those same memories where it was just on and it was just part of my cultural milieu.
21:06 --> 21:07 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
21:07 --> 21:16 [SPEAKER_05]: It was part of the language
21:17 --> 21:22 [SPEAKER_05]: the future and the possibility that the future provided.
21:23 --> 21:33 [SPEAKER_05]: I should also note I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that's relevant because we had a science fiction bookstore called Starbase 21 and they also sponsored
21:34 --> 21:38 [SPEAKER_05]: an annual science fiction convention called Trek Expo.
21:38 --> 21:41 [SPEAKER_05]: And that became a key part of my life as well.
21:42 --> 22:04 [SPEAKER_05]: I learned to read in part from reading Star Trek novels and the Star Trek novels and the authors who were a part of writing for Star Trek, then led me to the science fiction authors who raised me, the, you know, Ray Bradbury's and Madeline Lingles and Frank Herbert's
22:04 --> 22:10 [SPEAKER_05]: But also being involved in a community that had
22:12 --> 22:19 [SPEAKER_05]: Conventions that had, you know, a bookstore that had, I could see people living in these conversations.
22:19 --> 22:35 [SPEAKER_05]: And I also discovered fan fiction quite early in the fact that Star Trek is a co-created text right after the second season, basically you have this ongoing dynamic of being co-created with.
22:35 --> 22:39 [SPEAKER_05]: the official storytellers and the fans.
22:39 --> 22:49 [SPEAKER_05]: And whether that's fans writing letters to get the series back on the air or fans writing fan fiction with details about creating
22:49 --> 23:06 [SPEAKER_05]: fictional languages that then actually become incorporated into the series or the way that people created feedback for the show and commentary on the show through their fan art and fan fiction.
23:06 --> 23:19 [SPEAKER_05]: It all combined to me to see how stories were important and how stories
23:19 --> 23:24 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think there are very good reasons we keep going back to Star Trek.
23:25 --> 23:32 [SPEAKER_05]: Both in its official production and as fans, who want to talk about and who create this universe.
23:32 --> 23:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting too, just really quickly on that historical note, because that is also occurring.
23:42 --> 23:44 [SPEAKER_01]: as the right after that.
23:44 --> 23:46 [SPEAKER_01]: I should say not, it's not occurring necessarily.
23:47 --> 24:05 [SPEAKER_01]: It's the precursor to, but I think part of the fuel of the role-playing game culture, specifically Dungeons and Dragons, and then what it and everything else that sort of came in the wake of Dungeons and Dragons, because I know that
24:06 --> 24:08 [SPEAKER_01]: as a child watching Star Trek.
24:08 --> 24:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Then of course, being a child, you know, seeing Star Wars and having battle star galactica and all of these other shows having a culture of
24:29 --> 24:55 [SPEAKER_01]: our interest in these stories and co-create these stories through structured role-playing, that I don't think whether they would arise independently, the fact that they fuel each other, I think, is something that I would assert, that there's a direct relationship between those,
24:56 --> 25:01 [SPEAKER_01]: All of those feelings, you know, we used to run around in the playground, playing Battle Star Galactic, playing Star Wars.
25:02 --> 25:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Not so much Star Trek.
25:03 --> 25:07 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a little dated, even though it was part of our thing, you know, Reagan on some spaceships.
25:07 --> 25:08 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, there you go.
25:08 --> 25:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:08 --> 25:11 [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's fodder for a young kids playing in the thing.
25:11 --> 25:15 [SPEAKER_01]: But then as we grew out of that, right there was role playing games.
25:16 --> 25:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And then that allowed us to continue co-creating those fantasies with each other.
25:22 --> 25:26 [SPEAKER_01]: in a way, yeah, in a way that wasn't present prior.
25:26 --> 25:40 [SPEAKER_01]: We had wargaming prior to that, saying tables and little miniatures, but to actually do narrative-based storytelling and to breathe the life into these worlds, I think it's a unique time period in the early 80s when this is all happening.
25:42 --> 25:43 [SPEAKER_05]: That's a great connection.
25:43 --> 25:44 [SPEAKER_05]: I like that a lot.
25:44 --> 25:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let's go into this question
25:51 --> 25:56 [SPEAKER_01]: What would you say as an academic and as a fan an academic?
25:57 --> 26:02 [SPEAKER_01]: is the source of Star Trek's cultural potency.
26:02 --> 26:05 [SPEAKER_01]: What's its valence to modern society?
26:05 --> 26:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Why do we keep holding on?
26:07 --> 26:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And holding on so tightly, maybe sometimes too tight.
26:11 --> 26:14 [SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about academy here and strange new world in a minute.
26:15 --> 26:20 [SPEAKER_01]: But why is there such a fervancy among the fandom?
26:21 --> 26:27 [SPEAKER_01]: And how does it continue to hold on even outside of the core fandom?
26:28 --> 26:41 [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's something there from the very beginning when Jean Roddenberry realized he wasn't being allowed to tell the stories he wanted to tell, on network television, without censorship.
26:41 --> 26:44 [SPEAKER_05]: And he realized using metaphor, he could do that.
26:45 --> 26:50 [SPEAKER_05]: And so he gave up trying to make the lieutenant or these, these other shows.
26:52 --> 26:57 [SPEAKER_05]: talked about issues that were timeless, but we're also very timely.
26:58 --> 27:10 [SPEAKER_05]: And for people who learn to think about what metaphors meant and how they applied to the current day and how the current day could then be extrapolated from here we go there, right?
27:11 --> 27:20 [SPEAKER_05]: We see ourselves at point A, Star Trek is showing us point C, what do we have to do to get
27:20 --> 27:36 [SPEAKER_05]: a passive feeding that is an active invitation to be a part of something, to accept a call to action, to accept our agency that we could play a part in moving us from where we are to what we're seeing here.
27:36 --> 27:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Could we say idealism is playing a part in that?
27:41 --> 27:41 [SPEAKER_05]: I think so.
27:42 --> 27:46 [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, that reminds me saying idealism.
27:46 --> 27:49 [SPEAKER_05]: One of my favorite
27:50 --> 28:04 [SPEAKER_05]: current authors of Star Trek work, who is also herself an excellent science fiction scholar, Dr. Una McCormick, she came and spoke to one of my Star Trek classes.
28:05 --> 28:09 [SPEAKER_05]: And she was talking about idealism and Star Trek.
28:09 --> 28:10 [SPEAKER_05]: And she said,
28:11 --> 28:15 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to quote her directly because this is a quote that lives in my life.
28:16 --> 28:19 [SPEAKER_05]: She says, I don't believe utopia exists.
28:20 --> 28:22 [SPEAKER_05]: I believe utopia is a process.
28:23 --> 28:34 [SPEAKER_05]: Star Trek makes me think about how we can live utopian leap, how we can live better, and how we can organize and interact better.
28:34 --> 28:36 [SPEAKER_05]: And that's, that's for quote.
28:36 --> 28:37 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's great.
28:37 --> 28:38 [SPEAKER_01]: That really goes to the heart.
28:38 --> 28:42 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been thinking a lot about what is Star Trek for me.
28:42 --> 28:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that starts to give some distinction to what is the feeling inside of me that makes me want to like this property.
28:52 --> 28:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
28:53 --> 28:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
28:54 --> 28:55 [SPEAKER_01]: There is a call to action.
28:56 --> 28:58 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a pathway forward for us.
29:00 --> 29:00 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
29:01 --> 29:03 [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not showing those people who are perfect.
29:03 --> 29:23 [SPEAKER_05]: by me showing us people who are trying to make things better and who are accepting certain things like infinite diversity and infinite combination, right, that there can be specialists who are very competent in what they do and that's important and teamwork.
29:23 --> 29:37 [SPEAKER_05]: Among those specialists is also very important and the idea that we make mistakes, but instead of making the same mistakes over and over again, perhaps we can learn from them.
29:37 --> 29:44 [SPEAKER_05]: And again and again, Star Trek gives us stories that are reflections of things we have done, that we don't have to do again.
29:44 --> 29:47 [SPEAKER_05]: If we can just get the lesson from those.
29:47 --> 29:50 [SPEAKER_05]: And fail better next time, right?
29:50 --> 30:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And do something that perhaps won't be perfect, but it won't be maintaining the cycle of perpetuating our errors.
30:03 --> 30:12 [SPEAKER_05]: And the idea that things could be better is not just hope, but it's also a challenge because it doesn't happen without us, without our active participation.
30:12 --> 30:16 [SPEAKER_05]: So I think your point about call to action, you know, that's exactly what it is.
30:16 --> 30:19 [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't start trick doesn't want passive viewers.
30:19 --> 30:22 [SPEAKER_05]: Start trick wants people who say, all right then.
30:22 --> 30:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
30:23 --> 30:25 [SPEAKER_05]: I guess the future is something we need to make.
30:26 --> 30:40 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not something that we just inherit or are a recipient of, but it's an active choice to lean forward into a future, into a potential.
30:42 --> 30:42 [UNKNOWN]: That.
30:43 --> 30:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the things, at least for me, when I'm looking at Star Trek across this
30:55 --> 31:06 [SPEAKER_01]: original series and next generation, Voyager, I am ashamed to say that I deep space nine knowledge is a little lacking relative to the others.
31:07 --> 31:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And I know it's like one of those giant, like, oh, I really need to address this problem, but I don't like, I just can't because it's such a huge thing.
31:15 --> 31:16 [SPEAKER_01]: The brilliant, it's brilliant.
31:16 --> 31:23 [SPEAKER_01]: I know, it's, and Garrick is one of my absolute, I don't know, he may be my number one favorite character from all our
31:23 --> 31:47 [SPEAKER_01]: The idea that, in those shows is always embedded these ideas, and in the style of storytelling, where an episode was an episode, and maybe there were a few stitched together across to make an arc, but nothing like we have now, where the entire season is one storyline.
31:47 --> 31:51 [SPEAKER_01]: But episode to episode, we're just starting for wherever we're starting.
31:52 --> 32:02 [SPEAKER_01]: that there's always embedded in those an idea or a concept or something that they're trying to illuminate and it's through the action of the characters.
32:02 --> 32:04 [SPEAKER_01]: There's moreality plays in a way.
32:04 --> 32:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
32:05 --> 32:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And theater traditions all over the world do this.
32:11 --> 32:15 [SPEAKER_01]: They are a space for us to,
32:15 --> 32:22 [SPEAKER_01]: enact our or to demonstrate good action moral behavior.
32:23 --> 32:30 [SPEAKER_01]: struggling with ethical choices, showing the downfall of certain kinds of choices.
32:30 --> 32:47 [SPEAKER_01]: And I know the new trek, old trek kind of thing, sometimes people bounce off those words and whatever, just start trek from that post-pre, pre, I guess we would say the Kelvin timeline, the pre-JJ Abrams ones, right?
32:47 --> 32:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think somewhere right in there is where we split.
32:50 --> 33:05 [SPEAKER_01]: is that there is some kind of difference, and I have except for Academy, I've struggled to watch the more recent, the more recent productions of Star Trek.
33:05 --> 33:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So, and because for me, it was always that there was a clear tale, a clear morality tale happening in this episode, or series of episodes.
33:15 --> 33:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And I could really, I could really grab on to, as a fan, as just somebody watching, I could really grab onto this idea or this teamwork or this philosophy or this idea of, you know, Shaka, the walls fell, or things like this, to these ideas of Darmac and Delod on the ocean.
33:35 --> 33:36 [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm getting those, right?
33:36 --> 33:38 [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a minute since I've looked up.
33:38 --> 33:40 [SPEAKER_01]: those phrases.
33:40 --> 33:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But the idea is that there was always something present in center and it was easy to grab onto where I have a harder time with the newer ones.
33:48 --> 33:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Which I think goes into the question of franchise storytelling and where we are with Star Trek now.
33:54 --> 34:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious as an academic, do you have a sense of what's your sense of the state of play of the franchise?
34:06 --> 34:09 [SPEAKER_05]: I should probably say, I have actually enjoyed new trick.
34:10 --> 34:14 [SPEAKER_05]: I like that there are trying new things for sure.
34:14 --> 34:32 [SPEAKER_05]: But I also found in discovery, particularly the last seasons of discovery, and Academy, a lot to appreciate in the idea of moving forward a vast amount of space in time, a vast amount of time.
34:32 --> 34:42 [SPEAKER_05]: But moving forward so that the characters then have to interrogate what did the Federation mean?
34:42 --> 34:44 [SPEAKER_05]: What were its core values?
34:44 --> 34:48 [SPEAKER_05]: If we're going to reconstitute the Federation, is it even needed?
34:48 --> 34:51 [SPEAKER_05]: And if it is needed, what did it stand for?
34:51 --> 34:55 [SPEAKER_05]: And what of those values are worth carrying forward?
34:55 --> 34:57 [SPEAKER_05]: And how do we act on those again?
34:57 --> 35:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And that felt fresh to me in a way that I found very useful.
35:02 --> 35:08 [SPEAKER_05]: I do take your meaning about the episodic story telling versus the arc story telling I'm you know.
35:09 --> 35:11 [SPEAKER_05]: potato, potato, I can tell either way with that.
35:12 --> 35:17 [SPEAKER_01]: And we go from pamphlets and short stories to novels at some point in printed literature, right?
35:17 --> 35:22 [SPEAKER_01]: There are changes in format that structure the way stories are told and the way that we consume them.
35:22 --> 35:27 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's all normal and valid and right, nothing wrong there.
35:27 --> 35:29 [SPEAKER_05]: Right, and it's just a question of taste.
35:31 --> 35:36 [SPEAKER_05]: I am concerned to a degree about where we are right now.
35:36 --> 35:37 [SPEAKER_05]: for two reasons.
35:38 --> 35:43 [SPEAKER_05]: But I'm also overall hopeful for another reason.
35:43 --> 35:50 [SPEAKER_05]: My concerns are a combination of the political moment with the studios.
35:50 --> 35:51 [SPEAKER_05]: Indeed.
35:51 --> 35:56 [SPEAKER_05]: I worry that there is political pressure on the studios and that there
35:57 --> 36:03 [SPEAKER_05]: experiencing a timidity that makes them risk averse.
36:03 --> 36:08 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think one of the best things that can happen in these franchises is trying new things.
36:08 --> 36:10 [SPEAKER_05]: Some of those things won't work.
36:10 --> 36:11 [SPEAKER_05]: That's okay.
36:11 --> 36:22 [SPEAKER_05]: Trying new things and seeing where these ideas can take us and where new storytellers can go and explore the premises of these franchises is incredibly important.
36:22 --> 36:26 [SPEAKER_05]: Otherwise, you just get recycled, stagnant storytelling.
36:26 --> 36:34 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I worry that there are political pressures that will make the studio timid.
36:34 --> 36:43 [SPEAKER_05]: And I also worry about a certain part of the fandom, the ones that feel entitled, and also nostalgic at the same time.
36:44 --> 36:48 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think both entitlement and nostalgia are frightening.
36:48 --> 37:10 [SPEAKER_05]: writing forces as the historian nostalgia is a really terrifying thing to me because it's it lies it's not it's not real um but the idea that there's also a fan base that hand at times weaponized things like social media and such that's not a great look
37:11 --> 37:14 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I feel in your pressures.
37:14 --> 37:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes is runs counter to what we would think of are the ideals of a particular franchise.
37:24 --> 37:28 [SPEAKER_01]: We can see this in the token, the the proofries of the token.
37:28 --> 37:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
37:29 --> 37:34 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even hesitate to say fan to our community because if you're spouting hate,
37:34 --> 37:39 [SPEAKER_01]: How can you be a fan of this property, even though you're dressing yourself as a fan of this property?
37:40 --> 37:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
37:41 --> 37:42 [SPEAKER_01]: No, I can.
37:42 --> 37:43 [SPEAKER_01]: And we see that it.
37:43 --> 37:48 [SPEAKER_01]: I think we definitely saw that with the Academy, which I quite enjoyed.
37:49 --> 38:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't, I hadn't thought, quick shout out to our friends over at the captain's pod in and today who covered that first season episode to episode and had some really great analysis and I was really happy to have that all along is my companion podcast since we weren't covering on on our podcast.
38:10 --> 38:27 [SPEAKER_01]: the I think something that they were hitting on and something that I was hitting on as well is not only what were they trying something new and not just doing fan service nostalgia member berries which is also a problem that can plague star wars.
38:27 --> 38:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Especially with the earlier animated series, I have some very good sharp critiques about the reuse of the same sound effects over and over again, or the same sort of plot mechanics or story elements, but that Academy tried to push into something new to shake up our mindsets about it, but I really like what you just said now, which is, well, what is Starfleet, and what value is it to us in this day and age?
38:57 --> 39:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And if we're going to reconstitute it, what does that mean practically?
39:02 --> 39:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, any good a Star Trek show, particularly, needs to have a point of view.
39:11 --> 39:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And needs to have a, this is where I'm, this is where we're standing and looking out on the landscape and this is what we're seeing and we're describing and acting through.
39:19 --> 39:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And if it doesn't have that kind of point of view, then I have a hard time, I want to note because I want to and because I want that call to action because I want that, that forward movement, if there is not a point of view and a theory of power and a theory of social relationships, if there's not a theory at the heart of it, then I don't know where to move through with the story.
39:39 --> 39:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
39:40 --> 39:41 [SPEAKER_01]: No, it makes perfect sense.
39:44 --> 39:47 [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's lots of reasons for hope, even though we're concerned about.
39:48 --> 39:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
39:49 --> 39:53 [SPEAKER_05]: Forces acting on at least the official storytellers.
39:54 --> 39:59 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think part of that is the fact that Star Trek is
40:00 --> 40:29 [SPEAKER_05]: co-created and there's it always has been kind of exactly there's a fan base that does get it the fan base that actually knows the text and and has internalized those those messages and believes in and doesn't you know
40:30 --> 40:32 [SPEAKER_05]: Star Trek is bigger than this moment.
40:32 --> 40:33 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
40:33 --> 40:40 [SPEAKER_05]: And so whatever forces are happening this moment, Star Trek will survive.
40:40 --> 40:43 [SPEAKER_05]: But I would have loved to have seen more Academy.
40:43 --> 40:44 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
40:45 --> 40:48 [SPEAKER_05]: Who knows maybe have season two that's right.
40:48 --> 40:48 [SPEAKER_05]: That's right.
40:48 --> 40:49 [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
40:49 --> 40:50 [SPEAKER_01]: We still have season two.
40:50 --> 40:51 [SPEAKER_05]: That's very true.
40:51 --> 40:52 [SPEAKER_05]: It's a good provider.
40:53 --> 40:54 [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting too.
40:54 --> 41:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is a good place where we can cleave apart the two fandoms between Star Trek and Star Wars.
41:03 --> 41:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's start talking about Star Wars a little bit and then let's see where we kind of synthesize right after that.
41:10 --> 41:13 [SPEAKER_01]: But something I just wanted to comment on really quickly.
41:13 --> 41:23 [SPEAKER_01]: when you said the story lives with us as star-trek fans because the co-creation has been part of the tradition from season two.
41:23 --> 41:31 [SPEAKER_01]: That is also true going back to the role-playing game a question.
41:31 --> 41:49 [SPEAKER_01]: is there's a lot of the similar challenges for Dungeons and Dragons as a specific kind of role-playing game and a specific title that is the biggest title and under which a whole ecosystem exists within there and there's always movements within that.
41:49 --> 41:51 [SPEAKER_01]: But right, it is the best.
41:51 --> 41:53 [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's like St. Kleenex or Xerox, right?
41:53 --> 41:56 [SPEAKER_01]: It is the titular thing.
41:56 --> 42:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And so people use Dungeons and Dragons as synonymous with
42:00 --> 42:03 [SPEAKER_01]: the act of tabletop role playing games.
42:03 --> 42:09 [SPEAKER_01]: But Dungeons and Dragons is owned by Wizards of the Coast, which is owned by Hasbro.
42:10 --> 42:18 [SPEAKER_01]: And so shareholders are driving the value, not storytellers who believe in the promise of the game.
42:19 --> 42:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And something that I've heard a number of voices within that role-playing community spaces say no matter what happens with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast and who owns the property.
42:33 --> 42:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The game is such that it lives with you at your table and the game that you're playing may use the same rule set, but you are not playing the same game as the next table over.
42:46 --> 42:54 [SPEAKER_01]: because you're making up your own, you've got your own, there's different tonalities and there's different house rules and different table rules and these kinds of things.
42:55 --> 43:00 [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, the game lives with the players, no matter who owns the franchise.
43:00 --> 43:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's an interesting aspect of, the Star Trek franchise is no matter who owns the intellectual property,
43:07 --> 43:20 [SPEAKER_01]: there is enough of the history of the franchise that lives with us that we can keep it alive, which I think, to me, I'm detecting a difference between the Star Wars fandom and the Star Trek fandom here.
43:21 --> 43:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder if we can maybe tease that apart a little bit.
43:24 --> 43:31 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if it's just something and I'm thinking in my head or if it's something that we can actually observe within fandoms.
43:31 --> 43:32 [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway,
43:32 --> 43:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we start off talking with you talking a little bit about your personal history with the Star Wars franchise?
43:38 --> 43:38 [SPEAKER_05]: Ah.
43:39 --> 43:39 [SPEAKER_05]: Great.
43:40 --> 43:50 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I campaigned to my parents to convince them that I was old enough to go to the theater and see Star Wars.
43:51 --> 43:59 [SPEAKER_05]: My first grown-up movie, and they agreed and they took me six times, so I was the
43:59 --> 44:02 [SPEAKER_05]: first-generation fan in the theater in 1977.
44:02 --> 44:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Strong memories of the lines going around the block, goodness, yes.
44:07 --> 44:12 [SPEAKER_05]: And the news hovering, just this phenomenon, who knew this was going to happen.
44:13 --> 44:22 [SPEAKER_05]: So I wore lay-a-buns on the side of my head, and I had two-buck and knee socks, and I was, I was hooked.
44:23 --> 44:25 [SPEAKER_05]: That was the second part of the one-two punch.
44:25 --> 44:28 [SPEAKER_05]: It was Star Trek and Star Wars.
44:29 --> 44:40 [SPEAKER_05]: both been with me throughout my life, but they're the two opposing voices on my shoulders because they do say different things to me.
44:40 --> 44:42 [SPEAKER_05]: And I found that valuable.
44:42 --> 44:47 [SPEAKER_01]: And the family gets a little frisky if you confuse one or for the other.
44:47 --> 44:50 [SPEAKER_05]: That's right, they're different stories.
44:50 --> 44:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.
44:51 --> 44:52 [SPEAKER_01]: One star story.
44:52 --> 44:54 [SPEAKER_05]: And one was a long time ago.
44:54 --> 44:58 [SPEAKER_05]: We are the future for Star Wars, because Star Wars is our history, right?
44:59 --> 44:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
44:59 --> 45:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:00 --> 45:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Very temporal, very timey way, me there.
45:02 --> 45:03 [SPEAKER_05]: Very, very.
45:04 --> 45:10 [SPEAKER_05]: But I've been a fan ever since, and I've had the good fortune to write about it.
45:10 --> 45:11 [SPEAKER_05]: I've got a new essay.
45:11 --> 45:17 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, great.
45:18 --> 45:26 [SPEAKER_05]: It is incredibly relevant to the time and it's incredibly relevant to my students.
45:27 --> 45:29 [SPEAKER_05]: I've taught Star Wars more than I have taught Star Trek.
45:30 --> 45:30 [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting.
45:31 --> 45:36 [SPEAKER_05]: And I've taught Star Wars every year since 2015, either undergraduate or graduate or both.
45:37 --> 45:40 [SPEAKER_05]: But there is a very strong...
45:42 --> 45:45 [SPEAKER_05]: demand from students to study Star Wars.
45:45 --> 46:03 [SPEAKER_05]: And if you study Star Wars, you can study everything, and study history, you can study philosophy, you can study world religions, you can military history and conflict, power, theories of power, and or, you know, revolutions, and how does change happen like all kinds of things.
46:04 --> 46:04 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
46:04 --> 46:12 [SPEAKER_05]: And Star Wars is an unlike Star Trek that's saying, you know, we're at point A, here's point C, how do we get there?
46:13 --> 46:17 [SPEAKER_05]: Star Wars is so invested in this idea, the history rhymes.
46:18 --> 46:31 [SPEAKER_05]: And this idea that we, every story we tell is, is a warning and a heads up to keep our eyes
46:32 --> 46:50 [SPEAKER_05]: George Lucas would start out with saying, you know, this is about empires, uh, how empires come to be with republic sliding into empire with free people advocating their responsibilities and giving away their freedoms to tyrants.
46:50 --> 47:08 [SPEAKER_05]: and later Tony Gilroy and andor will say you know it's it's it's about right now but it's also about humanities ongoing story because you can drop the needle any time in a 4 year history and find these same patterns happening over and over again and so
47:09 --> 47:24 [SPEAKER_05]: One of the things I value, one of the things that actually is comparable to start, track and start wars, I think, is Star Wars is inviting us from the very beginning from 1977 to say, hey, are we the Empire in this situation?
47:24 --> 47:37 [SPEAKER_05]: And from his perspective, the way he was portraying the original trilogy as his Vietnam conflict, trilogy, we work if you're talking about from a US perspective.
47:37 --> 47:52 [SPEAKER_05]: But in an ongoing way, both of these franchises are asking us to be self-critical and giving us metaphors to give us just enough distance that we can say, maybe we're the baddies and what do we do about that?
47:53 --> 48:20 [SPEAKER_05]: because of the the metaphors there that the big lessons the call to action are there but there's also a sense we have to be prepared that these cycles happen over and over again and maybe this time we can catch the cycle before before we do abdicate our responsibilities and give our rights away to a tyrant but if we do do those things and if we fall into this trap again
48:21 --> 48:23 [SPEAKER_05]: People have come through it before.
48:24 --> 48:25 [SPEAKER_05]: There's something on the other side of that.
48:26 --> 48:34 [SPEAKER_05]: So what is the ethical way to conduct ourselves with resilience, with resistance, with rebellion?
48:35 --> 48:36 [SPEAKER_05]: Whether that's
48:38 --> 49:00 [SPEAKER_05]: being the person who's shooting the death star, the person who sabotaging the death star, so it can be shot, or the person on the street in pharynx, who's just getting out and walking, walking the streets of their own occupied town, saying the people who live here live here, and this is ours in the face of occupiers.
49:01 --> 49:20 [SPEAKER_05]: Again, calls to action, but this idea that history rhymes and we need to be aware of that and not fall blindly into the traps or fall blindly into the patterns that have led us into suffering, perhaps we can liberate ourselves from that suffering in each other.
49:20 --> 49:28 [SPEAKER_01]: As you were talking about that, what came to mind is in some ways,
49:30 --> 49:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Star Wars is descriptive of history, of the use of power, of rebellion, who has power, how does power change hands?
49:43 --> 49:45 [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about the meanline story.
49:45 --> 49:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, there's a massive universe of books and comics and video games that are all adding to the canon.
49:54 --> 49:56 [SPEAKER_01]: There's the
49:56 --> 50:07 [SPEAKER_01]: I would dare I say, covalistic elements of it if you have a, there's a, or, or the, I'm trying to think of what Christian mythology mythos, you know, the more mysterious aspects of Christianity.
50:08 --> 50:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking of Judaism, particularly with the study of the Kabala, which is more mystical driven than say,
50:15 --> 50:17 [SPEAKER_01]: day-to-day worship and ritual driven.
50:18 --> 50:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
50:20 --> 50:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
50:21 --> 50:24 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a whole aspect of Star Wars where it's very mystical.
50:25 --> 50:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And with the force and the father and the the daughter, and, you know, all of these things, and the space in between, there's a whole other realm of Star Wars that I'm only starting to learn about.
50:37 --> 50:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
50:37 --> 50:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Relative to the mainline story of the Skywalker's and rebellion and power.
50:45 --> 50:55 [SPEAKER_01]: which is what came to mind as you were talking was that Star Wars in some ways is descriptive, where Star Trek is pro-scriptive.
50:56 --> 50:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I like that.
50:57 --> 51:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It's giving us, it's giving it, Star Wars is saying, hey, here's power, here's a theory of power.
51:03 --> 51:05 [SPEAKER_01]: And clear.
51:06 --> 51:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I got to marker that on my phone, right?
51:11 --> 51:17 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a, here's a theory of power and how power changes hands and what happens when you have power.
51:18 --> 51:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Be careful of these things, watch out for these things.
51:21 --> 51:32 [SPEAKER_01]: These are the pitfalls, and these are the signs and warnings to look out for, as opposed to Star Trek, which is saying, here's how you cooperate in a multi-ethnic society.
51:32 --> 51:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how you form alliances.
51:34 --> 51:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how you struggle with questions of first contact with ethics across cultural barriers.
51:44 --> 51:51 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that works as a way to look at the two fandoms and the two franchises.
51:52 --> 51:53 [SPEAKER_05]: I like that a lot.
51:53 --> 51:54 [SPEAKER_05]: I think you're on to something there.
51:54 --> 51:55 [SPEAKER_05]: Very much so.
51:56 --> 52:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And so not saying and not limiting either property to those things, but just as there's some essence within both of them that are that have these markers.
52:09 --> 52:17 [SPEAKER_05]: And I would say then the commonality between the descriptive and the prescriptive, the commonality between those two visions is
52:18 --> 52:31 [SPEAKER_05]: there is agency and there's choice in both whether you are the person on the lower decks in the ship that isn't the state of the art.
52:31 --> 52:32 [SPEAKER_05]: Right exactly.
52:32 --> 52:37 [SPEAKER_05]: Or you are use Pony Gower's idea again from Andor.
52:37 --> 52:41 [SPEAKER_05]: You are the gravel paving the path.
52:41 --> 52:42 [SPEAKER_05]: on the road to rebellion.
52:42 --> 52:45 [SPEAKER_05]: We're never going to get the metal at the end of the ceremony.
52:45 --> 52:49 [SPEAKER_05]: We're an unnamed person who just moved things on a little bit more.
52:49 --> 52:51 [SPEAKER_05]: That's still agency.
52:51 --> 52:53 [SPEAKER_05]: That's still moving things.
52:53 --> 52:55 [SPEAKER_05]: And we still have choice.
52:57 --> 53:02 [SPEAKER_05]: The tides of despair and hopelessness and inertia that can
53:03 --> 53:17 [SPEAKER_05]: attack us in our modern world, you know, looking out the window, these are answers to that, saying, there's still something you can do and it can make an impact, right?
53:17 --> 53:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking of, I believe it's the first episode where spoilers for Henry and Dorsey's
53:33 --> 53:33 [SPEAKER_01]: will never meet again.
53:34 --> 53:36 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting emotional thinking about the scene.
53:36 --> 53:41 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but you're you're already home.
53:41 --> 53:43 [SPEAKER_01]: You've come home to yourself.
53:43 --> 53:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
53:45 --> 53:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Because you recognize the imbalance of power and you're a small person.
53:50 --> 53:55 [SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to stand there with Luke and Han and get your medals.
53:55 --> 54:04 [SPEAKER_01]: but this rebellion, and this overthrow of this empire, doesn't happen without her.
54:06 --> 54:06 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
54:06 --> 54:11 [SPEAKER_05]: And he knows she can't live with herself if she doesn't do something.
54:13 --> 54:16 [SPEAKER_05]: And that, a call out to all of us who feel like.
54:16 --> 54:16 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
54:16 --> 54:19 [SPEAKER_05]: We can't live with ourselves that we don't do something.
54:19 --> 54:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is where at least in the last series of films
54:24 --> 54:28 [SPEAKER_01]: which had a lot of conversation around them, we'll say.
54:28 --> 54:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe it was in Ryan Johnson's movie, which I haven't seen the last two or last three and I haven't rewatched them in some time, so it's a little fuzzy.
54:39 --> 54:41 [SPEAKER_01]: But I believe there's a scene of a young,
54:42 --> 54:46 [SPEAKER_01]: boy at the end who interacts with the force or something like death.
54:46 --> 55:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is at least the potency and again, the valence of the story here is that we, the fandom have the power, we, the society have the power.
55:03 --> 55:10 [SPEAKER_01]: The power does not, there is no reason it resides in the hands of these people other than the fact
55:12 --> 55:21 [SPEAKER_05]: goes back to David Hume's idea of implicit submission, the powers with the people, why do they just submit to the rulers?
55:21 --> 55:22 [SPEAKER_05]: Right?
55:22 --> 55:28 [SPEAKER_05]: What is it that makes them think they don't have power because in fact they do?
55:28 --> 55:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is something that's relevant to us today, literally today.
55:34 --> 55:35 [SPEAKER_01]: that absolutely.
55:36 --> 55:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's interesting.
55:38 --> 55:43 [SPEAKER_01]: So as we're thinking about these two properties, Star Trek 60, Star Wars is about 49 years old.
55:43 --> 55:46 [SPEAKER_01]: I believe in terms of the release on screen.
55:46 --> 55:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Could we argue that they're the two biggest specative fiction franchises?
55:54 --> 55:56 [SPEAKER_01]: They have the most history.
55:57 --> 56:07 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that any, I mean, could we say Azimov or, I mean, Herbert with Dune, he's running them ahead a little bit.
56:07 --> 56:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Who?
56:09 --> 56:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true, Dr. Who I forget about that.
56:12 --> 56:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, everybody in the UK.
56:14 --> 56:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll have to forget about you.
56:15 --> 56:18 [SPEAKER_05]: Again, there is a lot of, a lot of interaction there.
56:18 --> 56:21 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, people who are writing for Doctor Who are also writing for start.
56:21 --> 56:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Gary Seven is an assignment Earth is supposed to be a Doctor Who character, right?
56:26 --> 56:26 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
56:26 --> 56:27 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
56:27 --> 56:29 [SPEAKER_05]: So I think it's all in conversation.
56:29 --> 56:30 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
56:30 --> 56:40 [SPEAKER_05]: But in terms of unbroken storytelling, I think you're probably right because these other, these other franchises, these other works, you know, people keep returning to them.
56:40 --> 56:53 [SPEAKER_05]: But in terms of this consistent story telling, I think you could at least say they are two of the if not the two that are the modern the modern stories and certainly
56:53 --> 57:01 [SPEAKER_05]: And in terms of the vocabulary that we have, I'll have undergraduates students who say, I don't know Star Wars.
57:01 --> 57:02 [SPEAKER_05]: I've never seen Star Wars.
57:02 --> 57:16 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I know who Luke and Leia and Han and C3PO and R2DQ and Darth Vader and I know about the Death Star and I know about, I can only name maybe a dozen planets and you know, and they know, I mean, they are speaking the language.
57:16 --> 57:21 [SPEAKER_05]: They understand Yoda, they understand, Brogu, they understand,
57:22 --> 57:30 [SPEAKER_05]: So even just pervading popular culture without a deep connection to fandom, I think those two really are.
57:30 --> 57:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
57:32 --> 57:42 [SPEAKER_01]: And before I want to start talking about this idea of modern myth making and storytelling and that essential nature of who we are as a species.
57:44 --> 57:51 [SPEAKER_01]: But I just have to quickly segue and ask, have you been watching Mall and what's your opinion of it?
57:51 --> 57:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think it's a very different style of storytelling.
57:55 --> 58:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Contrasted with the acolyte, which was very painful and upsetting for a lot of reasons, because it was starting to mind a rich storytelling aspect.
58:08 --> 58:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And yet it got caught up in the,
58:11 --> 58:14 [SPEAKER_01]: messiness of cultural conversation and franchise management.
58:14 --> 58:20 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just curious as your opinions quickly as a fan on both of those titles.
58:23 --> 58:29 [SPEAKER_05]: I was fascinated by accolite potential and thought it was trying to do and I wish we had more of it.
58:29 --> 58:30 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
58:31 --> 58:34 [SPEAKER_05]: Don't hold this against me, but I haven't done mall yet.
58:35 --> 58:37 [SPEAKER_05]: And the reason why is I have just been teaching.
58:38 --> 58:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.
58:38 --> 58:51 [SPEAKER_05]: This very, very deep dive on and or and so I had to stop everything and go back and rewatch both seasons of and or twice and take a lot of notes and so I thought, you know what I'm going to wait.
58:52 --> 58:55 [SPEAKER_05]: And then I'm going to just spin.
58:55 --> 58:55 [SPEAKER_05]: day.
58:55 --> 58:56 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, right.
58:56 --> 58:57 [SPEAKER_05]: Just immersing myself in this.
58:58 --> 59:05 [SPEAKER_05]: So I have heard some of the discourse, some positive things from students, but I have not yet, that is up next.
59:05 --> 59:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.
59:05 --> 59:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Up next, it will maybe we'll touch base quickly and get your thoughts on mall as a post script to do this conversation.
59:12 --> 59:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic.
59:12 --> 59:18 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's one of, and or season one, I think, is on my power.
59:18 --> 59:21 [SPEAKER_01]: My personal power rankings
59:21 --> 59:23 [SPEAKER_01]: of all Star Wars ever.
59:24 --> 59:27 [SPEAKER_01]: And mall I think is now sliding into my number two.
59:27 --> 59:28 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh fantastic.
59:28 --> 59:30 [SPEAKER_05]: I say this is going to be a treat.
59:30 --> 59:33 [SPEAKER_05]: This is the carrot getting me absolutely.
59:33 --> 59:34 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm looking forward to it.
59:34 --> 59:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Great.
59:35 --> 59:41 [SPEAKER_01]: So switching tax again and coming back at this angle on
59:41 --> 59:45 [SPEAKER_01]: the question of modern myth-making.
59:45 --> 59:52 [SPEAKER_01]: These are made up stories, and yet people adhere to them as if they were some kind of truth.
59:53 --> 01:00:00 [SPEAKER_01]: You can go into the Westeros and house the Dragon Game of Thrones fandoms, and the
01:00:00 --> 01:00:06 [SPEAKER_01]: The meet-up histories are in our Tolkienian in depth and in accuracy.
01:00:07 --> 01:00:08 [SPEAKER_01]: And you go to the Tolkien fandom.
01:00:08 --> 01:00:11 [SPEAKER_01]: You go to Star Wars Star Trek.
01:00:11 --> 01:00:15 [SPEAKER_01]: There is a deep adherence, people speaking in language.
01:00:15 --> 01:00:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Forget cosplay and you know what have you.
01:00:19 --> 01:00:23 [SPEAKER_01]: People actually taking on people being able to read Calabash.
01:00:24 --> 01:00:28 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like it is very intense.
01:00:28 --> 01:00:31 [SPEAKER_01]: but it's all made up and it's all made up by us.
01:00:32 --> 01:00:44 [SPEAKER_01]: But so we're all the gods and higher beings from all cultures around the world, right?
01:00:44 --> 01:00:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And all of these storytelling's, whether you're reading the Mahabharata or you're talking about Zeus and all his buddies on Mount Olympus.
01:00:53 --> 01:00:55 [SPEAKER_05]: We are storytelling people, right?
01:00:55 --> 01:00:59 [SPEAKER_05]: And there's a reason we keep returning to certain stories.
01:01:00 --> 01:01:07 [SPEAKER_05]: And I am a fan of Tracy Deon's Legendborn series.
01:01:07 --> 01:01:07 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
01:01:07 --> 01:01:15 [SPEAKER_05]: That takes place at UNC Chapel Hill and in the modern day, and it's an Arthurian series.
01:01:16 --> 01:01:17 [SPEAKER_05]: We keep going back to King Arthur.
01:01:17 --> 01:01:20 [SPEAKER_05]: And that's a long time since more Arthur came real.
01:01:20 --> 01:01:31 [SPEAKER_01]: my ten year old keeps talking to me about wings of fire and I'm like I know I've heard all of these I know like I have to bite my tongue and say, you know, she's just recycling a whole bunch of other story lines, right?
01:01:31 --> 01:01:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Not to not to knock her her publications or what she's doing, which I think is great, because it's giving my daughter a framework of ethics and morality.
01:01:42 --> 01:01:44 [SPEAKER_01]: But it goes right to that point.
01:01:44 --> 01:01:55 [SPEAKER_01]: She's found some sort of niche title and has invested herself into it in a way that is useful, utilitarian for her life.
01:01:56 --> 01:01:57 [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
01:01:58 --> 01:02:06 [SPEAKER_05]: And I think both Star Trek and Star Wars used the building blocks of older stories.
01:02:07 --> 01:02:09 [SPEAKER_05]: create new stories.
01:02:10 --> 01:02:13 [SPEAKER_05]: So these are time-tested things that we want as human.
01:02:14 --> 01:02:22 [SPEAKER_05]: But also, they are told in a way and presented in a time that is accessible to us.
01:02:24 --> 01:02:34 [SPEAKER_05]: But I agree, a wholeheartedly, we crave the immersion in that as it is a common language that we speak.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting that we invest ourselves so deeply in these things, you know, what and hold them to be a truth, well, it's what it would trick of what trick of our mind is that that we need these things, I wonder.
01:02:54 --> 01:02:58 [SPEAKER_05]: I think both of them, both Star Trek and Star Wars are saying things that are true.
01:02:58 --> 01:02:59 [SPEAKER_05]: They mean not be factual.
01:02:59 --> 01:03:05 [SPEAKER_05]: They're saying it through fiction, but they're saying things
01:03:05 --> 01:03:08 [SPEAKER_05]: the question then is drilling down and interrogating?
01:03:09 --> 01:03:10 [SPEAKER_05]: What is it there?
01:03:11 --> 01:03:12 [SPEAKER_05]: That that we need.
01:03:13 --> 01:03:24 [SPEAKER_05]: And what role is that filling for us in thinking about who we want to be and how we're going to live and what kind of role we want to build?
01:03:24 --> 01:03:27 [SPEAKER_05]: And you know there were people
01:03:28 --> 01:03:40 [SPEAKER_05]: playing the game, big tea, big G. While Star Arthur Conan Doyle was writing the Sherlock Holmes stories, insisting Sherlock Holmes existed, and they would write letters to Sherlock Holmes.
01:03:40 --> 01:03:52 [SPEAKER_05]: They knew they didn't really think, I mean, maybe a couple of people learned that most people knew Sherlock Holmes did, but they invested books worth of scholarship
01:03:52 --> 01:04:20 [SPEAKER_05]: explaining away any inconsistencies in the stories and giving chronologies and explaining where he was when and where was Dr. Watson and this that the other because Sherlock Holmes also answered something that we want bringing some reason into the chaos and rewarding our marriage of reason and imagination
01:04:20 --> 01:04:23 [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's a reason we keep coming back to these stories.
01:04:23 --> 01:04:27 [SPEAKER_05]: And part of it is about living in unprecedented times.
01:04:27 --> 01:04:31 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, both Star Trek and Star Wars came out of unprecedented times.
01:04:31 --> 01:04:36 [SPEAKER_05]: Star Trek came out of a massive social upheaval and political unrest.
01:04:37 --> 01:04:49 [SPEAKER_05]: And Star Wars came out as a bit of a time that was literally labeled as Malay's, where you have these Hollywood stories of anti-heroes
01:04:50 --> 01:04:53 [SPEAKER_01]: And right, the ending of easy writer doesn't end very nicely.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:55 [SPEAKER_05]: Spoilers, sorry.
01:04:55 --> 01:04:55 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
01:04:55 --> 01:04:56 [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
01:04:56 --> 01:04:57 [SPEAKER_05]: Don't not a feel good film.
01:04:57 --> 01:04:58 [SPEAKER_01]: No.
01:04:58 --> 01:04:59 [SPEAKER_05]: Not lifting after.
01:04:59 --> 01:04:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
01:04:59 --> 01:05:14 [SPEAKER_01]: We have midnight cowboy and French connection and sort of all of this, which is important because we need to grapple with the gritty reality of the urban and industrialized spaces that in economies that we've created.
01:05:14 --> 01:05:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
01:05:15 --> 01:05:16 [SPEAKER_01]: So we need that mirror.
01:05:17 --> 01:05:26 [SPEAKER_05]: But also if that's the only diet we have, then it can be very easy to say, well, there's nothing I can do about any of this is there.
01:05:26 --> 01:05:30 [SPEAKER_05]: This is the way it is and just got to try to survive it.
01:05:30 --> 01:05:37 [SPEAKER_01]: And here we have a farm boy in a smuggler getting the accolades of heroes at the end of the movie.
01:05:37 --> 01:05:42 [SPEAKER_01]: And that is a kind of a, we have a, within the Laura Hound's community, we've got about,
01:05:43 --> 01:05:51 [SPEAKER_01]: I think nine different sort of fan created frameworks and tests to examine story.
01:05:51 --> 01:05:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Everything from one of them's named after Marilyn, the Pukillus scale for violence.
01:05:56 --> 01:06:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So it sort of rel- it scales like, where is this fall on a violent scale?
01:06:00 --> 01:06:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And can I watch it?
01:06:02 --> 01:06:06 [SPEAKER_01]: To, I would say, the,
01:06:06 --> 01:06:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Which one is it the shipy test for screen changes versus source changes, so based on Tom shipy's lecture.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And a one that was recently invented was the Brenner Hope Punk test.
01:06:21 --> 01:06:23 [SPEAKER_01]: Alicia Brenner is one of our main hosts.
01:06:24 --> 01:06:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And she's onto this idea of Hope Punk, one of this idea of having Hope within the face of, you know, just overwhelming.
01:06:33 --> 01:06:50 [SPEAKER_01]: malaise or powerlessness and can we see our way through that and having the sense of hope, but being punk about it at the same time, right, which we need to have a little spring in our step as we battle the evil empires.
01:06:50 --> 01:06:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
01:06:51 --> 01:06:52 [SPEAKER_01]: How audacious?
01:06:52 --> 01:06:53 [SPEAKER_01]: How subversive?
01:06:53 --> 01:06:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
01:06:53 --> 01:06:54 [SPEAKER_01]: To be hopeunk.
01:06:54 --> 01:06:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
01:06:55 --> 01:06:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
01:06:56 --> 01:07:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, so we joke about, you know, I think project Hail Mary's is labeled hopeunk.
01:07:03 --> 01:07:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it passes the hopeunk test and some other things.
01:07:05 --> 01:07:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, interesting, as you were talking before, I was thinking about
01:07:15 --> 01:07:34 [SPEAKER_01]: these questions of like what we need and what we derive from these stories and what sort of essences of truth and how to orient ourselves to the world and oftentimes that was done in the past through orthodoxies of one kind or another.
01:07:34 --> 01:07:44 [SPEAKER_01]: A religion or a belief and a
01:07:45 --> 01:08:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a guest in the Reformation, and maybe even with the Transcendentalist, I might daughter an Irochina documentary about Thoreau right now on PBS, this three part thing, it's blowing my mind, it's blowing her mind.
01:08:00 --> 01:08:05 [SPEAKER_01]: And this idea that, you know, truth is no longer,
01:08:06 --> 01:08:14 [SPEAKER_01]: mediated by and dulled out by some structure, right, and you're told what the truth is and then you receive that.
01:08:16 --> 01:08:35 [SPEAKER_01]: And this speculative fiction be it fantasy, be it laser guns and science, because I think there's a difference there obviously between Star Wars and Star Trek Star Wars is never really cared about, you know, the physics of space where, you know, Star Trek at least
01:08:35 --> 01:08:50 [SPEAKER_01]: But the idea that we can write our own stories, we can play our own video games, we can go to our own fan conventions, and the truth isn't being...
01:08:51 --> 01:09:04 [SPEAKER_01]: We're creating, you know, we're finding these truths and then we're exercising and living them out on our own without a papal figure or a central, you know, leader telling us what is and what isn't the truth.
01:09:06 --> 01:09:12 [SPEAKER_05]: And holding ourselves accountable to the meaning that we mine from those things.
01:09:13 --> 01:09:15 [SPEAKER_05]: That's a very useful way to think about that, I think.
01:09:15 --> 01:09:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, because it's when we look at the franchises and the power that the franchises have, it's it's it's in an inordinate to the fact that these are just some made-up stories.
01:09:26 --> 01:09:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Right Lucas and like with the idea for you know or or runberry and you know wagon trained to the stars on a submarine right you know like what you know.
01:09:34 --> 01:09:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
01:09:36 --> 01:09:40 [SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly we have 60 years of culture and
01:09:40 --> 01:09:45 [SPEAKER_01]: ethics and philosophy and morality and and fan enjoyment.
01:09:47 --> 01:09:51 [SPEAKER_05]: And yet we see we see in the DNA of these stories.
01:09:52 --> 01:10:01 [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, if you think about Lucas and what's happening with with Luke Skywalker looking out at the binary sunset, right?
01:10:01 --> 01:10:04 [SPEAKER_05]: You've got distilled in that image.
01:10:05 --> 01:10:12 [SPEAKER_05]: John Ford's Westerns through Kira Kurosawa's Samurai films through Sergio Leone's West, right?
01:10:12 --> 01:10:24 [SPEAKER_05]: You've got the storytelling tradition that seem through all of these lenses and distilled and made potent through all of these lenses before they forget there.
01:10:25 --> 01:10:30 [SPEAKER_05]: And so on the one hand, these franchises are doing this thing.
01:10:30 --> 01:10:35 [SPEAKER_05]: But I think on the other hand,
01:10:36 --> 01:10:53 [SPEAKER_05]: that it is to their credit that they utilize their foundations so well that they tap into our need for story even if we don't realize we're all the story parts come from right we know we're getting fed from this really deep well does that make sense.
01:10:54 --> 01:11:02 [SPEAKER_01]: it then it gets to the level of writing books and having podcasts and a whole universities on mining for these truths.
01:11:02 --> 01:11:13 [SPEAKER_01]: And so we get to have this conversation because there is a richness within the text that we can even talk about it in a meta-concept rather let alone a specific context.
01:11:14 --> 01:11:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
01:11:16 --> 01:11:19 [SPEAKER_01]: So interesting, you brought up the Western thing.
01:11:19 --> 01:11:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I just have to give a quick shout out.
01:11:20 --> 01:11:25 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm never one to not shout out other creators that we get to interact with.
01:11:25 --> 01:11:31 [SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite things to do is to encounter interesting people and have conversations with them.
01:11:32 --> 01:11:44 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just want to quickly shout out there's a online, I don't know if you call it a magazine or it's more than a blog, it's less than a magazine called Heat Death, put a link in the show notes,
01:11:44 --> 01:11:56 [SPEAKER_01]: One band, Asher and Saul, or both our brothers and journalists, but they have a really great on running a series called Decline in Fall.
01:11:56 --> 01:12:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's all about telling the history of Star Wars from within the world of Star Wars as a history and might deconstruct and analyze the history of things.
01:12:07 --> 01:12:09 [SPEAKER_01]: It's fascinating.
01:12:09 --> 01:12:21 [SPEAKER_01]: and then to Tanzi Gardum, who's an Australian film critic who does an amazing podcast called going rogue, she loves to look at films that have troubled histories and be constructed and be compiled them.
01:12:22 --> 01:12:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I had a great conversation with Asher and Tanzi talking about the Jurassic franchise.
01:12:28 --> 01:12:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But our sort of next future project is going to be about Westerns and I'm going to take your point about Westerns and Western mythology being used in in Star Trek.
01:12:39 --> 01:12:46 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a it's very valid you know that whole you know Luke looking out so anyway shout outs to to those folks over there.
01:12:46 --> 01:12:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which I think that
01:12:47 --> 01:13:13 [SPEAKER_01]: is a good segue for us to wrap up, but I always like to wrap up these conversations with asking our guests, what are three things that you are reading, watching, listening to, anything that's holding your intentions, sparking joy, fire in your intellectual engines, and then we'll, again, throw some links in the show notes once you've given us your three things.
01:13:14 --> 01:13:15 [SPEAKER_05]: Brilliant, all right.
01:13:16 --> 01:13:24 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so the first one I would list, I'm a little late to this party, but better late than never arriving in the first place.
01:13:24 --> 01:13:43 [SPEAKER_05]: So I have found the British Austrian historical procedural series being a blood, which I thought.
01:13:43 --> 01:14:00 [SPEAKER_05]: crimes in Vienna, solved by an inspector and a medical man who is a student of Freud, and set there in the early years of the 20th century, and the comparisons
01:14:02 --> 01:14:15 [SPEAKER_05]: between Vienna at that time and political forces and what's coming next and all of the the upheaval there to our own time really remarkable actually.
01:14:16 --> 01:14:25 [SPEAKER_05]: And so the series Vienna Blood is brilliant, but it's also based on a book series, which I then devoured in one huge
01:14:25 --> 01:14:37 [SPEAKER_05]: Frank Talis's Lieberman Heapers novels, which are seven books and one novella published from 2005 to 2018, and those works then become adapted into the Vienna Blood series.
01:14:38 --> 01:14:44 [SPEAKER_05]: So that's a deep dive I took, and I'm very happy I've built on that well.
01:14:45 --> 01:14:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And it sounds like the buddy
01:14:54 --> 01:15:11 [SPEAKER_05]: very much so with dueling procedural tools and world views, so you get a sense of, for example, frizzic science and psychology kind of coming into their own in that same historical moment, so it's intellectually delicious, but it's also beautiful.
01:15:11 --> 01:15:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Did you have any catch department queue on Netflix last year?
01:15:14 --> 01:15:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Love that.
01:15:15 --> 01:15:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I got it.
01:15:15 --> 01:15:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Love that.
01:15:16 --> 01:15:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Looking forward to the next season.
01:15:22 --> 01:15:28 [SPEAKER_05]: Another one I'm looking forward to the upcoming sunrise on the Rebing film adaptation.
01:15:29 --> 01:15:41 [SPEAKER_05]: I have just re-read the novel again and what it has to say about what we've already talked about this implicit submission and propaganda and resistance so potent and so powerful.
01:15:41 --> 01:15:44 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the Hunger Games stranger.
01:15:44 --> 01:15:48 [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, and and fly fly advertisement here.
01:15:48 --> 01:15:52 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm getting ready to teach a five month series going through every one of the Hunger Games novels.
01:15:53 --> 01:15:55 [SPEAKER_05]: I've already offered this once in space.
01:15:55 --> 01:15:56 [SPEAKER_05]: And it went so well.
01:15:56 --> 01:15:57 [SPEAKER_05]: We're doing it again.
01:15:57 --> 01:16:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And we're we are not below a shameless plug here.
01:16:01 --> 01:16:02 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm fantastic.
01:16:02 --> 01:16:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
01:16:03 --> 01:16:03 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
01:16:03 --> 01:16:11 [SPEAKER_05]: I appreciate it sunrise on the reaping of the five Hunger Games books is my favorite and I love all five of them.
01:16:11 --> 01:16:13 [SPEAKER_05]: But the.
01:16:14 --> 01:16:28 [SPEAKER_05]: the use of Enlightenment ideas, like Hume, talking about a political power and about agency, Edgar Allan Poe, in sunrise on the reading, lots of love there.
01:16:28 --> 01:16:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I see a poet, a cardboard cutout behind you there.
01:16:32 --> 01:16:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you a big Poe fan?
01:16:33 --> 01:16:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Big, big Poe fan.
01:16:35 --> 01:16:35 [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
01:16:35 --> 01:16:44 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to have to connect you with Alicia, who's one of our
01:16:44 --> 01:16:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I know she's looking forward to hearing this podcast.
01:16:47 --> 01:16:48 [SPEAKER_01]: So shout out to you, Alicia.
01:16:49 --> 01:16:50 [SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.
01:16:50 --> 01:16:51 [SPEAKER_05]: I have to talk.
01:16:51 --> 01:16:57 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm I'm I've got a new book project that is very much in in the the Gothic.
01:16:57 --> 01:16:59 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm in the middle writing the book now.
01:16:59 --> 01:17:01 [SPEAKER_05]: So I should talk on that.
01:17:01 --> 01:17:03 [SPEAKER_05]: Very exciting.
01:17:05 --> 01:17:14 [SPEAKER_05]: And lastly, just a personal thrill here, Tori Anis, her 18th studio album in Times of Dragons just came.
01:17:15 --> 01:17:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Gosh, I had no idea.
01:17:17 --> 01:17:19 [SPEAKER_05]: He grabbed me with a little earthquakes.
01:17:20 --> 01:17:30 [SPEAKER_05]: And when under the pink drop in 1994, I decided that every time a new Tori Anis album drop would be a personal holiday for me.
01:17:30 --> 01:17:33 [SPEAKER_05]: And she's basically the soundtrack to my adult life.
01:17:33 --> 01:17:36 [SPEAKER_05]: And so, new touring this album day just happened.
01:17:37 --> 01:17:39 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm very excited that we have new touring.
01:17:39 --> 01:17:41 [SPEAKER_05]: So that's my musical thing there.
01:17:41 --> 01:17:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
01:17:41 --> 01:17:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you have to check it.
01:17:43 --> 01:17:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Never mind the music or one of our campaign or network podcasts.
01:17:46 --> 01:17:47 [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
01:17:47 --> 01:17:47 [SPEAKER_05]: I will.
01:17:47 --> 01:17:48 [SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
01:17:48 --> 01:17:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I'll poke those folks and see if they have any opinions on Tori Emos.
01:17:54 --> 01:17:54 [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
01:17:54 --> 01:17:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Those are good.
01:17:55 --> 01:17:58 [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll throw some links into the show notes for those things.
01:17:59 --> 01:18:03 [SPEAKER_01]: A couple of great recommendations hadn't heard about either of those that book or that television series.
01:18:03 --> 01:18:04 [SPEAKER_01]: So very cool.
01:18:05 --> 01:18:08 [SPEAKER_01]: What is next for you?
01:18:08 --> 01:18:12 [SPEAKER_01]: You let fly a couple of hints, but what's on deck immediately?
01:18:12 --> 01:18:17 [SPEAKER_01]: And then where could people find you if they wanted to track you down on the internet?
01:18:17 --> 01:18:20 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, thank you for asking both of those things.
01:18:20 --> 01:18:25 [SPEAKER_05]: I have a couple of pieces shorter academic articles coming up.
01:18:25 --> 01:18:30 [SPEAKER_05]: I have a new chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Shirley Jackson.
01:18:31 --> 01:18:32 [SPEAKER_05]: Shirley Jackson is one of the authors.
01:18:33 --> 01:18:36 [SPEAKER_05]: I study and love and teach and write about.
01:18:36 --> 01:18:40 [SPEAKER_05]: And so the Oxford Handbook of Shirley Jackson is supposed to come out next year.
01:18:40 --> 01:18:43 [SPEAKER_05]: And I do have an essay in that.
01:18:43 --> 01:18:46 [SPEAKER_05]: And I have a new essay that is coming up.
01:18:46 --> 01:18:53 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say that there is a new academic anthology on Star Wars and politics.
01:18:53 --> 01:18:53 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
01:18:53 --> 01:19:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And I have an essay that is related to grassroots resistance and the way it's depicted in Greg Ruckus novel Guardians of the Wills.
01:19:02 --> 01:19:05 [SPEAKER_05]: It's manga adaptation and and door.
01:19:06 --> 01:19:07 [SPEAKER_05]: So that's going to be in there.
01:19:07 --> 01:19:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Believe I've heard
01:19:09 --> 01:19:13 [SPEAKER_01]: our community kick around that title guardian of the well.
01:19:13 --> 01:19:16 [SPEAKER_01]: So I know it's known with our community.
01:19:16 --> 01:19:22 [SPEAKER_01]: I know nothing about it, but shout out to Laura Hounds, keep your eyes on Amy's space.
01:19:24 --> 01:19:24 [SPEAKER_05]: Fantastic.
01:19:24 --> 01:19:34 [SPEAKER_05]: If you like Rob won, and you're interested in more on shared in way and base
01:19:34 --> 01:19:36 [SPEAKER_05]: great, great back on the material.
01:19:36 --> 01:19:37 [SPEAKER_03]: Perfect.
01:19:37 --> 01:19:39 [SPEAKER_05]: And fits very well with Andorce storytelling.
01:19:39 --> 01:19:39 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
01:19:40 --> 01:19:43 [SPEAKER_05]: And then I'm currently working on a new book.
01:19:44 --> 01:19:52 [SPEAKER_05]: One of my other areas is the Gothic and I have written on dark academia before I've taught a course on dark academia.
01:19:52 --> 01:19:55 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm very interested in dark academia storytelling.
01:19:56 --> 01:20:00 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm in the middle of a new book that is related to.
01:20:01 --> 01:20:11 [SPEAKER_05]: real-life missing students and their unsolved cases and how those true crimes have been revisited and reinvestigated in dark academia fiction.
01:20:12 --> 01:20:30 [SPEAKER_05]: So it's a look at gothic storytelling based on true crime, which frankly takes us all the way back to Edgar Allan Poe taking the real-life
01:20:30 --> 01:20:54 [SPEAKER_05]: the haunted space left by real missing students and why this impacts storytelling is access and invitation to storytellers to go and revisit these cases and what lessons we can learn from them that we can apply then to higher education and school spaces today.
01:20:54 --> 01:20:58 [SPEAKER_05]: So a lot of interesting
01:20:58 --> 01:21:02 [SPEAKER_01]: without going too far down the rabbit hole because it sounds like a whole other podcast.
01:21:02 --> 01:21:03 [SPEAKER_01]: What is dark academia?
01:21:03 --> 01:21:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I have not heard that term before.
01:21:05 --> 01:21:15 [SPEAKER_05]: It's, well, there's a current online aesthetic that is a thing that's a kind of,
01:21:15 --> 01:21:20 [SPEAKER_05]: nostalgia, comfy thing about imagining academic spaces.
01:21:21 --> 01:21:28 [SPEAKER_05]: But dark academia storytelling is actually a long storytelling tradition that goes back quite a ways.
01:21:28 --> 01:21:31 [SPEAKER_05]: And it's involves academia in some ways.
01:21:31 --> 01:21:37 [SPEAKER_05]: So you've got students, professors, academic spaces, set at schools or laboratories or libraries.
01:21:38 --> 01:21:39 [SPEAKER_05]: It's Gothic.
01:21:39 --> 01:21:45 [SPEAKER_05]: So it's tied to, um, with Harry Potter fall within this, um, but it would, okay.
01:21:45 --> 01:21:48 [SPEAKER_05]: In fact, I wrote an essay called, um,
01:21:49 --> 01:22:03 [SPEAKER_05]: Dark Arts and Secret Histories investigating dark academia that was published in an academic anthology called Potter-Versity in 2024 with MacFarland edited by Catherine and McDaniel and Emily Strand.
01:22:03 --> 01:22:19 [SPEAKER_05]: And part of the argument was Harry Potter helped popularize this, but then the new wave of dark academia publishing is actually people pushing back against JK Rowling, writing new stories,
01:22:19 --> 01:22:28 [SPEAKER_05]: what they found lacking in either the Harry Potter stories or in Rolling's own presentation of her perspective.
01:22:28 --> 01:22:45 [SPEAKER_01]: So interesting that the whole academia, Sub-John Ram, because I go back to Earthsea and the Gwen, as I think an early introduction to me as to, hey, there's a school where wizards are produced.
01:22:45 --> 01:22:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
01:22:46 --> 01:22:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what's beyond what's earlier than that.
01:22:49 --> 01:22:51 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's the error or if there's something.
01:22:52 --> 01:23:00 [SPEAKER_01]: But I suppose we could go back to Greek, you know, right, you know, Aristotle Plato stuff.
01:23:00 --> 01:23:12 [SPEAKER_05]: But there's a deep threat of critique of power and balances.
01:23:13 --> 01:23:40 [SPEAKER_05]: hypocrisies and intellectual errors that goes back in the critique part of dark academia is really powerful and I think you can at least go back to Frankenstein where you have a student at a university who divorces himself from all of the norms of his studies and goes off the rails and says I'm not going to deal with professors and students and all
01:23:40 --> 01:24:03 [SPEAKER_05]: Research is going to be I'm going to go do my own thing over here and not take responsibility for it so the critique part absolutely A key element of that and so I think that that goes back least as far as 1818 that probably earlier And of course, at least it just did a whole deep dive at the end of last year beginning of this year on Frankenstein that was centered around the movie.
01:24:03 --> 01:24:08 [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway Bad list good stuff where can people find you
01:24:09 --> 01:24:15 [SPEAKER_05]: I am Amy Hstergis.com, and that has lists of all the other places you can find me.
01:24:15 --> 01:24:20 [SPEAKER_05]: My main hangout on social media is MasterDawn.
01:24:21 --> 01:24:23 [SPEAKER_05]: I like the deep, federated space.
01:24:23 --> 01:24:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
01:24:23 --> 01:24:32 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm DRHstergis at UniversalDawn there, but you can find all my links at my website, which is Amy Hstergis.com.
01:24:33 --> 01:24:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
01:24:33 --> 01:24:34 [SPEAKER_05]: So thank you so much.
01:24:34 --> 01:24:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, we'll throw that in the in the show notes.
01:24:36 --> 01:24:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this has been an absolute pressure.
01:24:38 --> 01:24:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for agreeing to this.
01:24:41 --> 01:24:43 [SPEAKER_05]: What if fantastic conversation?
01:24:43 --> 01:24:44 [SPEAKER_05]: I've had a wonderful time.
01:24:44 --> 01:24:45 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much.
01:24:45 --> 01:24:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to having another conversation with you again in the future and maybe when we've got some scholarship and maybe some of your your fellows at Signum, we can get together and talk about some things in future.
01:24:58 --> 01:24:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Open door.
01:24:58 --> 01:24:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Be lovely.
01:24:59 --> 01:25:00 [SPEAKER_01]: That would be
01:25:00 --> 01:25:06 [SPEAKER_01]: So quick reminders to our listeners, join our community discord.
01:25:06 --> 01:25:10 [SPEAKER_01]: We've got a great and very positive community there.
01:25:10 --> 01:25:12 [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about all the shows and films that everybody's watching.
01:25:12 --> 01:25:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Books that we're reading, music that we're listening to.
01:25:15 --> 01:25:22 [SPEAKER_01]: and to well-organize and it's well-moderated, if you appreciate what we do, we are an independent podcast.
01:25:22 --> 01:25:28 [SPEAKER_01]: So, subscription, your subscriptions really matter for us to be able to produce conversations like these.
01:25:29 --> 01:25:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And we're on supercast and on Patreon.
01:25:32 --> 01:25:38 [SPEAKER_01]: There will be links for everything in the show notes, including the links for Amy's resources.
01:25:38 --> 01:25:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And as always, a shout out to our subscribers.
01:25:41 --> 01:25:44 [SPEAKER_01]: I won't list, a lot of times we list our lower master subscribers.
01:25:45 --> 01:25:47 [SPEAKER_01]: But I won't on this one, but you all know who you are.
01:25:47 --> 01:25:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you also very much.
01:25:48 --> 01:25:49 [SPEAKER_01]: We couldn't do it without you.
01:25:50 --> 01:25:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Amy, thank you so much again.
01:25:52 --> 01:25:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
01:25:54 --> 01:25:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
01:25:55 --> 01:25:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll see you in space.
01:25:57 --> 01:25:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Fabulous.
01:25:57 --> 01:25:58 [SPEAKER_05]: Look for you there.
01:26:00 --> 01:26:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The lower-hounds podcast is produced and published by the lower-hounds.
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01:26:20 --> 01:26:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.