Episode 224: Written in the Stars with Dr. Amy H. Sturgis

On this episode of Geek4, I'm talking with Dr. Amy H. Sturgis about the connections between the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. These are fandoms that have often figured themselves as being in opposition to each other - you're either a Star Wars fan or you're a Star Trek fan; but Amy has some interesting ideas about how much common ground these two franchises share.

Amy has a Ph.D. in History from Vanderbilt University, specializes in the intellectual history of speculative fiction, and teaches at Lenoir-Rhyne (Lenore-Rine) University and Signum University (graduate faculty). She has taught Star Wars to either undergraduate or graduate classes every year since 2015! In 2021, she offered a new graduate course called “Exploring Star Trek.”

Amy is the author of four books and the editor/co-editor of ten others, including the forthcoming anthologies Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away (both with co-editor Emily Strand), Sturgis also has published more than sixty essays, including articles on Star Trek in academic anthologies and has been interviewed as a genre expert in a variety of programs and publications such as NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” The Huffington Post, and LIFE Magazine. Each month she contributes the “Looking Back at Genre History” segment to the Hugo Award-winning podcast StarShipSofa.

And I'm thrilled to have her here to talk about Star Wars and Star Trek.

Amy’s official website is amyhsturgis.com.  And you can follow Amy on Mastodon @drahsturgis and on Twitter (at least for now) @drahsturgis

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I respectfully acknowledge that I live and work on th traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.