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Conversations around diversity, race and science fiction and fantasy films/television have sparked in response to recent casting decisions made in the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi (Deggans, 2022; Romano, 2022). Backlash against casting of actors of Color in these genres highlights racial projects where a cultural memory of whiteness comes up against multicultural change. The authors of this paper feel that there is great potential in using current-day racial issues around fantasy films/television to explore these racial projects with students in social studies classes (Omi and Winant, 2014).

Using a qualitative textual analysis (Peräkylä, 2005), the authors examined online news media outlets addressing the casting of actors of Color in the aforementioned media pieces. After reviewing over twenty articles, the authors determined two major themes that would serve as the findings.

In this paper, themes of nostalgia for an imagined ‘way things were’ and future-based fears of how things will become emerged from the analysis, revealing a need for engaging students in the history of sci-fi and fantasy media, and the existing, diverse histories of storytelling featuring multiple races.

The authors argue that examining racial projects found in contemporary sci-fi and fantasy casting are chances for students to understand complex racial histories and how they blend into current-day cultural landscapes, and are opportunities to practice analysis of real-life racial histories and richly-imagined fantasy worlds, noticing how and why the two often collide when it comes to race.

The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned successful innovator and entrepreneur regarding turning his lifelong dream into an invention and commercialized product. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

Harry Kloor is a successful serial entrepreneur, scientist, technologist, educator, policy advisor, author and Hollywood filmmaker. He is the CEO and co-founder of Beyond Imagination, a company that has developed a suite of exponential technology solutions that deploys artificial intelligence (AI), AR, robotics, machine learning and human–computer interaction technology to enhance and revolutionize the world’s workforce. The company early in 2021 completed BEOMNI 1.0, the world’s first fully functional humanoid robotic system with an AI evolving brain, enabling remote work at a high level of fidelity to be done from around the globe. Kloor describes how he transformed his childhood dream into his brainchild and tangible reality.

Kloor was born a groundbreaker who did not take no for an answer. He was born partially crippled with his legs facing backwards. The doctors said that he would spend his life in braces and would never be able to run. His parents told him not to let those ideas limit him and by the age of seven he ran for the first time and went on to become a martial arts master. Kloor’s childhood dream was to create ways to leave his body and inhabit a robotic body so that he could physically be free from his limited mobility. Kloor built his first computer at the age of seven and invented his first product at the age of eight. Kloor's inspiration to study science came largely from science fiction and his 20,000-plus collection of comic books. Knowing the nature of exponential growth, he spent the next 40 years building the expertise, relationships, networks and experience in all areas of exponential technology. Kloor obtained a BA from Southern Oregon State College, an MEd from Southern Oregon University and two simultaneous PhDs, one in chemistry and one in physics, from Purdue University. Kloor co-founded the company Universal Consultants, where he served as chief science consultant, providing guidance to clients in the development of new technological products, patents and policy positions. Kloor was the founder of Stem CC Inc. – a stem cell company that was sold in 2018 to Celularity, one of the world’s most cutting edge clinical-stage cell therapeutics company. Kloor is also the founder and president of Jupiter 9 Productions and is a credited film writer, director and producer. Since his graduation from Purdue University, he has written for Star Trek: Voyager and was the story editor for Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, a series he co-created/developed. Kloor helped create Taiwan’s animation industry, bringing Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, the first big animation film that starred major Hollywood stars, to Taiwan. Kloor also sits on the board of Brain Mapping and Therapeutics Society and serves as their Chief Scientific Advisor and Educational Outreach Coordinator.

Kloor is a “creative consultant and universal problem solver, with an emphasis in technology and education.” Kloor has worked with Dr Peter Diamandis since the first class of the International Space University in 1988. Kloor was one of the five founding team members of XPRIZE serving as its CSO until 2005 and was one of the founders of the Rocket Racing League. He was on the founding team of Singularity University and taught at Singularity’s first summer program. In 2016 he created the $10m Avatar XPRIZE, and in 2018 he co-created the Carbon Extraction XPRIZE which obtained the largest incentive prize in history, a $100m, funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation. Kloor is the only person in world history to earn two PhDs simultaneously in two distinct academic disciplines. In recognition of this achievement, he was named ABC World News’ Person of the Week in August 1994. Kloor has received numerous awards, including The Golden Axon Award from the Society for Brain Mapping & Therapeutics. He has recently created the Kloor Cycle, a four-stage experiential autonomous learning process within Beomni’s “AI Brain,” adapted from Kolb’s Learning Cycles.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss four main research questions which are as follows: how does a consumer turn into a devoted fan? How does a devoted fan react to the expansion of a human brand? What kind of strategies does a devoted fan take when facing challenges encountered by a human brand? And are devoted fans homogeneous, or can they be further divided into different subgroups?

The basis of grounded theory process is intensive depth interviews with 14 devoted fans of a famous Taiwanese pop singer in a qualitative manner along with content analysis of messages from online fan clubs.

Using the metaphor of kingdom to parallel the phenomenon of fandom, the research also explicates the importance of initial brand position, and the construction and expansion from the core castle – the core positioning of the human brand – to become a kingdom where devoted fans swear to be loyal to the human brand and cross-buy the derivative products of the latter. Five fan’s subgroup and a theoretical framework are obtained.

The theoretical framework derived in this study explicates how consumers’ initial perceptions of the human brand are formed and reinforced and how they become different kinds of fans which in turn influence the strategies they take in the face of the expansion or withdraw of the human brand.

Earlier research on this topic focussed on the adoption of an innovation in isolation from other innovations. Analyzes the cumulative effects of earlier innovations on the adoption of future innovations in the same product class. It is proposed that innovators move through a series of stages, the innovator buying cycle, driven by an internal dynamic.