Science fiction, a genre known for its extrapolations into the future, seem Science fiction. For a genre that is known for its seemingly equitable futures, it sure seems to take issue with age and aging. Indeed, disability studies scholar Alison Kafer notes that “Whenever I tell people I have been working on a book about…
Author: Dr. Brenda Tyrrell
Dr. Brenda Tyrrell received her PhD in English Literature and her Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Certificate from Miami University (OH). Her research mostly focuses on the intersection between science fiction and disability studies but, along with that usually comes research on feminism and racism in the genre as well. Her most recent publication is "To boldly go where no one (sighted) has gone before: Positive Portrayals of Blindness in Star Trek: TNG and H. G. Wells’s ‘The Country of the Blind’," to be published in the forthcoming book "Finding Blindness: International Constructions and Deconstruction (Routledge). Before she became interested in literature and disability students, she worked as a registered nurse for nearly twenty years.
“She’s with us now”: Informed Consent, Assimilation (“cure”), and Disability in Star Trek: Voyager
Brenda Tyrrell // The Borg. Simply saying these two words makes such intrepid Star Trek captains such as Jean-Luc Picard turn tail and run. First introduced in 1989, the Borg instill dread, fear, and confusion into anyone who encounters them – and lives to tell about it; the pre-eminent bad guy of the Star Trek…
COVID-19: Not the Only Game in Town
Brenda Tyrrell // A notion that has been carelessly tossed around since COVID-19 emerged last spring is that it is ‘the worst pandemic in the last century.’ Is it, though? Those making this declaration are most likely thinking of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, when one-third of the world’s population was infected by the H1N1 virus,…