Join me in June 2025!

June is almost here! Next month I will be offering my month-long "Meet The Last Man" module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University.

Mary Shelley's novel is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I can't wait to discuss it with students!

Watch the teaser here:

Watch on YouTube

More information is available here.

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

1>New "Looking Back on Genre History"

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

Pictured is the cover of Sunrise on the Reaping: A Hunger Games Novel by Suzanne Collins. The cover art is purple, and it shows the image of a flint-striker pendant depicting a snake facing a mockingjay.

Pictured is part of a quote by Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume, a quote listed as an epigraph to Sunrise on the Reaping. The relevant part reads, "Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers...." The key phrase here is "implicit submission."

Pictured is a quote from the late-eighteenth-century protest poem "The Common and the Goose," which is quoted in Sunrise on the Reaping. This excerpt reads, "The law demands that we atone/ When we take things we do not own,/ But leaves the lords and ladies fine/ Who take things that are yours and mine."

My 12-week graduate course on the Dystopian Tradition will be offered this summer online at Signum University. I'm so glad that this class made; these works, and the conversations they make possible, are more important and relevant than ever.

Pictured is a stack of books including George Orwell's 1984, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, M.T. Anderson's Feed, Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, and Mordecai Roshwald's Level 7.

I'm delighted to say that it's back! My month-long module "Meet The Last Man" module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University has been confirmed for June 2025.

Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I'm really looking forward to exploring it with students!

Here is more information.

Watch on YouTube

“Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.” - David Hume, quoted in Sunrise on the Reaping

Happy Sunrise on the Reaping Day!

To celebrate, here is my new talk for the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville: "Why You Should Read The Hunger Games.

Watch on YouTube

My graduate course on the Dystopian Tradition will be offered again this summer online at Signum University if there's sufficient interest. I hope the class will make, because it seems more relevant than ever.

I'm delighted to say that it's back! My month-long module "Meet The Last Man" module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University is currently up for candidacy for June 2025. Voting is open through May 1.

Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I'm really looking forward to exploring it with students!

Here is more information.

Watch on YouTube

On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 750), I revisit the brilliant The Tomorrow Series and other works by John Marsden and discuss the lasting contributions of science fiction scholar H. Bruce Franklin.

Here is the link!

On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 748), I revisit the brilliant The Twilight Zone series and discuss Monsters on Maple Street: The Twilight Zone and the Postwar American Dream by David J. Brokaw.

Here is the link!

Thank you to all of the podcasts that invited me on this year!

My "Looking Back on Genre History" science fiction segment ran each month on StarShipSofa.

I talked to Potterversity about my book chapter "Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia"; to Trash Compactor and New Books Network about my book Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away; and to New Books Network about my book Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier.

I also talked about Alexis de Tocqueville with the Vital Remnants podcast and Mary Shelley (twice, once about The Last Man and once about Frankenstein) with The McConnell Center podcast.

Links to all of these podcast episodes are here.

New Publication in 2024:
An essay, "‘Lifting Old Curses’: The mirror dance of The Flowers of Vashnoi and The Mountains of Mourning" in Short But Concentrated #2: a second essay symposium on the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, edited by Una McCormack.

New in Paperback in 2024 (previously published in hardback & ebook in 2023):
Two books, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away, both co-edited with Emily Strand.

Some of the university and conference talks I gave this year are now online.

“Missing Students & Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia" (presented at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference).
View this presentation here.

Why You Should Read The Last Man by Mary Shelley

Watch on YouTube

Why You Should Read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Watch on YouTube

"A Fortnight in the Wilderness" with Alexis de Tocqueville

Watch on YouTube

I've been on a Mary Shelley roll lately! On my latest “Looking Back at Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 747), I revisit the brilliant Frankenstein. Here is the episode.

Pictured are open pages of The New Annotated Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and edited by Leslie S. Klinger. The pages show sepia-toned decorative artwork around the edges and a vintage illustration of Victor Frankenstein fleeing his awakened Creature.

One of the most relevant works you can read today was published in 1826.

Here I make my case for why you should read The Last Man by Mary Shelley.

Watch on YouTube

On December 1, 1946, sophomore Bennington College student Paula Jean Welden vanished. Her disappearance remains an unsolved mystery.

I'm currently working on a book project that involves the Welden case. Today it feels especially important to say her name.

Note: If anyone would like a (very brief!) peek into my current book project, here is a video of my presentation “Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia." I gave this talk earlier this year at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference.

This image of Paula Jean Welden (a black-and-white portrait of a young woman in her late teens) was circulated in missing person flyers and newspapers at the time of her disappearance in 1946. She is wearing a sweater with a collared shirt and necklace, sitting with one arm beside/behind her on the back of the sofa, regarding the photographer.

The Missing Person flyer circulated after Paula Welden's disappearance on December 1, 1946, including photos and a writing sample of hers, as well as descriptions of her and instructions on where to report information about her disappearance and/or whereabouts.

On November 18, 1897, junior student Bertha Lane Mellish vanished from Mount Holyoke College. Her disappearance remains an unsolved mystery.

I'm currently working on a book project that involves the Mellish case. Today it feels especially important to say her name.

Note: If anyone would like a (very brief!) peek into my current book project, here is a video of my presentation “Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia." I gave this talk earlier this year at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference.

Missing Person flyer offering a $500 reward for help finding missing student Bertha Lane Mellish. This broadside, which includes a portrait of Bertha Mellish, was posted December 10, 1897, during the search for missing Mount Holyoke College student.

The opening screen of the video for "Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia" by Amy H. Sturgis, with an image of a newspaper clipping from 1897 that reads "Missing from the College: Strange Disappearance of Miss Bertha Lane Mellish."

On my latest “Looking Back at Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 745), I discuss the New Wave in science fiction and the Dangerous Visions anthologies, including the newly-published The Last Dangerous Visions.

Image (posted by Blackstone Publishing) of the three science fiction anthologies Dangerous Visions; Again, Dangerous Visions; and, on top of the stack, The Last Dangerous Visions.

“Men love a prop so well, that they will lean on a pointed poisoned spear…”
- Mary Shelley, The Last Man

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