Why David Brooks’ The Second Mountain missed the mark
The first two chapters of David Brooks’ The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (2019) were great. The rest had too much of an out-of-touch worldview to gain …
Review of How Minds Change by David McRaney
David McRaney’s book How Minds Change: The New Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion (2022) offers a view of change that is both hopeful and frustrating. On the one hand, …
Review of The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
David Graeber never fails to radically reshape my view of the world with his research-informed writing and investigations into things many of us have taken for granted so long we …
New Book Adaptations of Dune
One book seems to give rise to another, and so I find myself releasing my third book on science fiction titled Adaptations of Dune: Frank Herbert’s Story on Screen (available in …
Notes from National Digital Forum (NDF) Conference 2023
The 2023 National Digital Forum (NDF) conference was held on November 20-21, 2023 at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Sessions were recorded and will be made available …
Review of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a psychologist and neuroscientist who challenges almost everything we think we know about the concept of emotions in her book How Emotions Are Made: The Secret …
Journey into Online Course Development
As part of my efforts to make science fiction scholarship more accessible, I have begun the journey into online course development and created a mini-course called “Dune 101” based on …
New Critical Companion Book on Dune
I’m pleased to write that my next book on Dune has been published by Palgrave, titled Frank Herbert’s Dune: A Critical Companion. It is part of the series Palgrave Science …
New Book on Women of Dune
I’m pleased to say my first book has been published by Palgrave, titled Women’s Agency in the Dune Universe: Tracing Women’s Liberation through Science Fiction. This represents the culmination of several years …
Notes from National Digital Forum (NDF) Conference 2019
National Digital Forum (NDF) Conference 2019 November 19-20, 2019 Te Papa Tongarewa (Wellington, New Zealand) The 2019 NDF conference was another two days full of ideas, inspiration, challenges, and network …