Anarres Project

The popularity of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons has skyrocketed recently.  Partly because of the COVID 19 pandemic and also because of the its prominent portrayal in the hit show "Stranger Things", more and more people have started to play this classic fantasy game where players imagine themselves as characters in far away mystical realms.   In this episode of Conversations...

The popularity of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons has skyrocketed recently .  Partly because of the COVID 19 pandemic and also because of the its prominent portrayal in the hit show "Stranger Things", more and more people have started to play this classic fantasy game where players imagine themselves as characters in far away mystical realms. In this episode of Conversations on Ana...

In this episode, we celebrate five years of TrekWars@OSU by considering the issue of refugees and displaced persons.  In 2021, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimated that there were 82 million people displaced because of war, conflict, and human rights violations around the world.   Some 30% of those are children.  Starting in 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

In this episode of TrekWars@OSU, Joseph Orosco, co director of the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures, and Dr. Jason Scully (Urban and Regional Planning, Eastern Washington University) discuss the ways in which race and mental health are represented in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard.  They talk about how the show depicts Black and Latinx characters through the story arcs of Raffi and Rios...

In this episode of FutureStates Focus, two philosophy professors, Joseph Orosco and Robyn Morris, review the sci-fi short film "Children of the Northern Lights" (2013).  This short film is written and directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, who is now an Assistant Professor of Arts at New York University.  His previous film "On the Ice" (2011) explores Inuit culture in Alaska and is a film f...

On this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Irish historian, Dr. Christopher J.V. Loughlin, who has been examining ancient Irish tales of sea voyages, the immrama,-- which literally means tales of "rowing about". He finds within them the seeds of a unique brand of speculative thinking he calls Celtic Futurism.  Many of these immrama stories date back to the 7th and 8th centuries...

In coordination with the Concerned Philosophers for Peace, the Anarres Project presents a discussion with the author (and co-director of the Anarres Project) Jose-Antonio Orosco about his new book "Star Trek and the Philosophy of Peace and Justice: A Global, Anti-Racist Approach" . (London:  Bloomsbury, 2022)   The dialogue is moderated by Dr. Greg Moses (Texas State University), editor...

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we speak to writer Susan DeFreitas.   She recently edited a collection of speculative fiction stories written in honor of Ursula K. Le Guin entitled:  "Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin".  While she worked on the project, she also read all of Le Guin's novels.  We sat down with her to ask her what insight...

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Dr. Helen De Cruz about science fiction, the radical imagination and the power of art to express philosophy.   She is a philosopher, science fiction/fantasy author, and artist.  Currently, she is the Danforth Chair of Philosophy and Humanities at St. Louis University where she teaches philosophy of religion, experimental philosoph...

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we sat down with Chuck Morse and Lara Messersmith-Glavin to talk about the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.  The IAS operates as a nonprofit organization that funds artists, writers and organizers to produce materials that explore anarchism as a social and political ideal.     Chuck Morse founded the I...

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talk with Dr. Amelia M. Wirts who teaches philosophy at the University of Washington.   In addition to being a philosopher, she is also a J.D., and has experience as a judicial clerk.  We talk about her research into the idea of police as a kind of systemic oppression in the United States.  Wirts examines different perspectives that tr...

On this episode of Conversations on Anarres, we talked with Dr. Randall Milstein. He is the Astronomer in Residence for Oregon’s NASA space Grant consortium, housed at Oregon State University.  He is not a NASA employee, but he works regularly to further NASA’s mission.   We sat down to talk to him about whether there are any benefits to humanity from the billionaire space race.  Dr...

Star Trek has always portrayed science and technology as positive tools for human progress, contrary to the way they are depicted in many modern science fiction stories.  We're more likely to see technology creating a dystopia in many contemporary films or TV series.  But we also live in an era in which many people are now skeptical of scientific developments and of scientists.  So...

The political economy of the Star Trek Universe is obviously very different from our current capitalist, free market system.  Is it a communist Utopia? Is the world of the Federation a fantasy or a realistic goal for human beings to work toward building?    In this episode of TrekWars@OSU, Anarres Project co-director Dr. Joseph Orosco talks with Will Nguyen, the Star Trek Communist,...

In this episode of Conversations on Anarres , we sat down with dancer and filmmaker Shane Scopatz to talk about his new work "Steps and Strikes".  Shane is a recent graduate of the Master’s Program in Environmental Humanities at Oregon State University. His film hopes to address the provocative question: Why did the environmental movement fail to protect us from ecological crisis? We sat down...

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...

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...

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...

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 Robi...