Star Wars may have started out as a film about a Manichean battle between good and evil, but as countless filmmakers, novelists, animators, fan artists and even cosplayers have taken the opportunity to play in the fictional world George Lucas created, it has expanded into something far greater, resulting in a richly layered and diverse Star Wars multiverse.
Drawing from a full range of Star Wars media, including comics, children’s books, fan films, and television shows like Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, Carmelo Esterrich explores how these stories set in a galaxy far far away reflect issues that hit closer to home. He examines what they have to say about political oppression, authoritarianism, colonialism, discrimination, xenophobia, and perpetual war. Yet he also investigates subtler ways in which the personal is political within the multiverse, including its articulations of gender and sexuality, its cultural hierarchies of language use, and its complex relationships between humans, droids and myriad species. This book demonstrates that the Star Wars multiverse is not just a stage for thrilling interstellar battles, but also an exciting space for interpretation and discovery.
Preface: Seriously, Star Wars
1 Navigating a Multiverse: Watching, Reading, Wearing Star Wars
2 Humans and Creatures + Droids: Hierarchies of Life
3 Imperial Desires: War, Order, Colonialism
4 Beyond Princesses and Flyboys: Gender and Sexuality in Star Wars
Conclusion: Star Wars, Seriously
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Works Cited
Filmography
Index
CARMELO ESTERRICH is an associate professor of humanities at Columbia College Chicago where he teaches interdisciplinary humanities and cultural studies, from Gilgamesh to Bjork. His scholarship has focused on the artistic production of twentieth-century Latin America, specifically film, literature, the visual arts, and popular music.
