Anarres Project

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, Dr. Joseph Orosco talks with Fiadh, the organizer of The People's Library ABQ, a radical lending library in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The library's growing collection contains radical history and theory, available for free to whomever wants it.  The People’s Library ABQ describes itself as “a community project of leftist theory anarchist history and radial education.  We have books about queer, feminist, antiracist theory, indigenous resistance, transformative justice, philosophy and revolutionary thought”.  

The People's Library of ABQ's collection of books, e-books, and zines can be browsed here:  https://radicalbooksabq.libib.com/ 

For more information about the project and how to support it, contact:  [email protected]  

Is the Federation in Star Trek really an empire any different from the Klingons, Romulans, or even the Mirror Universe Terran Empire?  

As part of TrekWars@OSU, Anarres Project co-director Dr. Joseph Orosco interviews Dr. Leigh McKagan, who teaches history at Virginia Tech University.  Dr. McKagan completed her dissertation examining the ways in which ST: Voyager repeats certain elements of classic European imperial narratives.  We talk about how Star Trek may keep alive ideas, such as linear progress and the hero's journey, that maintain empire as a political and social system, and how Star Trek may also resist imperial ideology.    

For more information on the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures, check us out on all the socials.

Over the past few months, about a dozen states with Republican majority legislatures have passed laws banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools.  Anarres Project co-director Dr. Joseph Orosco talked with Dr. Mark Naison to help us unpack what is going on with some of these bans.  

Mark Naison is Professor of History and African American Studies at Fordham University in New York.  His many books and articles cover African American polics, labor history, popular culture, and educational policy.  He is also the founder of the Bronx African American History Project and he is frequent commentator on CNN, Fox, O’Reilly Factor, and Chappelle's Show.    He has written a statement decrying these bans and talks about how we should approach the teaching of race in the US—advising us to focus both on the horrors of white supremacy but also the bravery and joy of communities of color resisting and struggling for human dignity.

For more about the Anarres Project, find us on all our socials.

Before, we have only imagined utopia, the point now is to build it.  The threat of looming climate catastrophe and the extinction of humanity demands that we use our radical imagination to find a bridge from the real to what is possible.  

In this conversation, Anarres Project co-directors Dr. Joseph Orosco and Dr. Tony Vogt interview the acclaimed science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson about his new novel, "The Ministry for the Future".  Topics include a discussion about the variety of utopian visions, the utopianism of Ursula K. Le Guin, conceptions of revolutionary social change, and the use/repurposing of science, technology, and the market economy to achieve the flourishing of human beings.  For more information about the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures, please find us at @AnarresProject on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.  Please let us know what you think about this and all our discussions.