Ironically, despite all my attempts otherwise, the single most widely read thing I’ve ever written is an academic analysis of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode and The Round House by Louise Erdrich that I once got published in American Indian Quarterly in 2018. My current department chair even cited it when he offered me one of those all-too-rare tenure-track positions that same year.

This is but one small example among many of how incalculable an impact Star Trek in general, and The Next Generation in particular, has had upon my personal development, which dates all the way back to my earliest childhood memories and has influenced even my most basic sense of ethics, morality, and wonder. RIP Walter Koenig and Sir Patrick Stewart (and just in time for the Day of the Dead).

Some reruns in their honor:

–Star Trek, Zion, and the United Order

–The Problematics of Iman in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

–Star Trek: Deep Space Nine After The Bell Riots