Sanctified Imagination Far Beyond The Stars
Episode description
What do Jesus’ parables, Black and disabled civil rights movements, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine all have in common? Probably more than you’d think — but for this episode, Laura and Avery focus on their joint uses in imagining a more just future into being.
Some of the places we go in this winding episode: Womanist midrash & sanctified imagination; AutScape & Crip Camp’s modeled possibilities; and in-depth discussions of two Deep Space Nine episodes (“Past Tense” and “Far Beyond the Stars”) that encapsulate the value of science fiction in making imagined futures reality.
(0:00) Introducing the need for marginalized communities to imagine futures the world claims are impossible
(7:30) AutScape, Crip Camp, and small tastes of what a fully accessible world would be like
(18:44) Lack of imagination isn’t always the problem – people in power resist the push for better futures
(26:23) Lily Wachowski’s Indian rope trick: creating what she needed to pull herself up
(31:10) Sanctified Imagination and Jesus’ impossible Kin(g)dom
(44:13) Uses of Sci Fi; introducing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine & “Past Tense”
(57:36) Bell Riots’ parallels to the Attica Prison Riots; race, gender, & dis/ability in “Past Tense”
(1:17:49) “Past Tense” as imperfect midrash
(1:22:13) Introducing “Far Beyond the Stars” — Sisko’s vision of a 1940s Black writer dreaming of himself in space
(1:49:07) Wrapping up — Laura’s sci fi story
A companion episode over on Avery’s Blessed Are the Binary Breakers podcast exploring AutScape in more depth: https://www.blessedarethebinarybreakers.com/podcast-feed/episode/22359848/imagining-futures-into-being-with-autscape
YouTube video “Holy Roller: The Power of a Wheelchair-Using God”: https://youtu.be/NRy7Au8T7BA?si=SnyYRIpoSxs9LuH0
More on the “Judgment Day” comic featuring a Black astronaut: https://www.brandeis.edu/peacebuilding-arts/publications/newsletter/2023/the-eve-ofjudgement-day.html
The African American Policy Forum: https://www.aapf.org/