We're flying off into the Star Wars Universe in today's episode: all about Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Master we all know and love. What qualities, attitudes, and actions make Qui-Gon the cool teacher-I mean Jedi Master- that every Padawan wants? How does the Master/Apprentice relationship work in Star Wars, and what can we teachers on Earth learn from Qui-Gon and emulate in our own classrooms?
My cohost today is Dr. Amy H. Sturgis, genre history and fandom studies expert. Amy H. Sturgis holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and focuses on the intellectual history of speculative fiction. Sturgis, who teaches at Lenoir-Rhyne University and Signum University, has authored four books, edited/co-edited ten others, and published more than sixty essays, many on topics related to the intersection of science fiction and history. Her most recent works include the newly-published 2023 academic anthologies Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away, both of which she co-edited, and soon-to-be-published scholarly essays on Dark Academia and the work of Lois McMaster Bujold. She has taught either an undergraduate or graduate class on Star Wars every year since 2015. In addition, she has been interviewed as a genre expert by LIFE Magazine, The Huffington Post, and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” among other media outlets. Sturgis also contributes the “Looking Back on Genre History” segment to the Hugo Award-winning podcast StarShipSofa.
