In this Conversation on Anarres, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic novel, The Dispossessed. We talk with Dr. Alexis Shotwell who is working to spell out Le Guin's anarchist philosophy. Shotwell speculates as to the features of "Odoian anarchism"--what values it expresses and how it is related to other classical anarchist thinkers such as Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin-- and she envisions what lessons it might have for our political organizing today.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we speak with author Javier Sethness Castro about his new review of Dune II (2024). Sethness Castro argues that the Frank Herbert's vision of humanity, as laid out in the novels, is one of a multicultural, multiracial, and religiously pluralistic human race spread out among the stars. The persistence of Islam, and of Muslim culture and traditions, is key to this vision.

However, Sethness Castro believes that Dune II downplays and erases this key element from the universe, limiting the radical possibilities of the film. We also talk about how the Dune universe can help us envision anti-imperialist politics in our world today and understand events in the Middle East.

You can read his article "Dune Part Two: A Film of Anti-Muslim Erasure" here.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Dr. Jason Eberl who is the editor of the book Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we interview artist Will Burrows. In the past few years, Burrows has become popular for his art that blends Star Trek with political themes and LGBTQIA pride.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Katherine Ann Power about her new memoir, "Surrender: My Journey from Guerilla to Grandmother". For over twenty years, Power was on the FBI Most Wanted List for her involvement in a revolutionary armed cell that sought the overthrown of the US government. After a bank robbery in which a police officer was killed, Power went into hiding and lived a secretive life. Eventually, she decided she needed to redefine her radical politics and she turned herself in. Upon her parole some years later, she began to study philosophy and to think about what social transformation involves if it is to be truly radical.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we speak with New York Times Best Selling author, Dr. Una McCormack. She has written over twenty science fiction novels, many of which are franchise novels that tie into the Star Trek, Firefly, and Dr. Who universes. We talk about how she prepares for writing her work and why she appreciates science fiction.

Dr. McCormack, however, has a deep appreciation for the Star Trek Universe. We discuss what makes this franchise so important in terms of the values it holds up as important for the future of humanity. Star Trek has always portrayed a hopeful vision of the future grounded in diversity, cooperation, and reason. We talk about why these matter and how they help us to analyze the world in which we live today.

We also discuss how the third era of Star Trek, NuTrek, continues to uphold these kinds of values through the series of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds.

In this Conversation on Anarres, we speak with Dr. David Seitz about his new book A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine.

We talk about how Star Trek came to be part of his academic research project and why Deep Space Nine captured his imagination as a way to talk about radical politics in the world today.

Our conversation touches on how DS9 is important for the way it is infused by themes from the US Black Freedom Struggle (partly as a result of the influence of Avery Brooks) and has lessons to teach us about colonialism, politics of occupation in the world today (particularly about the developments in Palestine), and queer identity.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Matilda Bickers, the co-editor of a new anthology, "Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex" (PM Press, 2023), which is a collection of reflections by sex workers on the nature of their labor. She explains how she got into this form of advocacy and what similarities sex work has to other forms of labor under capitalism. Given those overlaps, we then discuss what it means for sex workers to struggle for their rights and how others can demonstrate solidarity with sex workers as part of a labor movement focused on the rights and dignity of all workers.

In this episode of TrekWars@OSU, we consider the sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction that helped us to imagine futures free of domination, exploitation, war, and empire.

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Dr. Jesse Cohn about his essay "Demodernizing Anarchism". This essay appears in Issue 33 of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory and you can read it here.

For more information on the Institute for Anarchist Studies, check out their website here.