“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. The specialization of images of the world has culminated in a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system.” — Guy Debord

Alan N. Shapiro
media theory,
science fiction theory,
future design research

  • The Iran War is Not Taking Place (La Guerre d’Iran n’a pas lieu)

    “The first casualty of war is the truth.” The new formulation: The first casualty of post-truth is the post-war or hyper-war calamity. It is the fractal, viral, pandemic-like catastrophe spreading in all directions like a cancerous metastasis once known as war.

  • Six Reviews of “Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction”

    Here are short excerpts from six reviews of my book “Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction: Hyper-Modernism, Hyperreality, and Post-Humanism,” and some other quotations about the book.

  • Interview with Italian culture and philosophy magazine “Pandora Rivista”

    We can become AI: think, speak, and act like AI. Then we are not only offloading our intelligence and creativity to AI; we are learning from the patterns of that “other” or “alien” intelligence. By meeting the AI in the middle and mimicking it, we co-create a hybrid expressivity or computational aesthetics.

  • Tribute to Gerald Kogan

    This is a revised version of the text that I read aloud at the memorial service honoring Jerry Kogan in early 2014. About 200 people who knew and loved Jerry were in attendance.

  • Comments About “Venice in Las Vegas”

    Here I will post comments about “Venice in Las Vegas” as they come in.

  • Two Keynote Lectures in Turkey

    On October 31, 2025, I was a keynote speaker at the conference on “Media and Communication” at the University of Sakarya, Turkey. On November 4, 2025, I was a keynote speaker at the conference on Turkish cinema at the same university.

  • Venice in Las Vegas

    My memoir book “Venice in Las Vegas: An American and European Auto-Socio-Biography, 1960s to 1980s” has been published in the Counterpoints Studies in Criticality series, edited by Shirley Steinberg, of the Peter Lang Publishing House.

  • Alan N. Shapiro racconta “Star Trek” (RAI4 Italian TV interview)

    This is the transcript of an interview about Star Trek which I did on Italian TV (RAI4) in 2013. There exist also transcripts of interviews which I did on Italian TV about Lost and The Prisoner.

  • Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) Election

    I am currently a candidate for President of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA). Anyone who wishes to discuss my candidacy with me is encouraged to contact me to engage in dialogue. You can write me an e-mail.

  • Ayesha Mubarak Ali Podcast About My Book

    This is a transcript of Ayesha Mubarki AIi’s podcast about “Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction” that was part of her “Human Reimagined” series, January 2025.

  • Reply to a Critical Review of My Book

    In his review of my book Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction: Hyper-Modernism, Hyperreality, and Posthumanism in the journal Science Fiction Studies (July 2025), Miguel Sebastián-Martín makes many disparaging claims that are factually incorrect.

  • Reviews of Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance

    Here are excerpts from three reviews of my book “Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance,” beginning with the long review-essay in Science Fiction Studies, and some other quotations about the book.

  • Prominente: Groß und Klein

    Die Amerikaner träumen groß. Die größten Hamburger. Die größten Hot Dogs. Zum Mond und Mars. Der Football Super Bowl und die Baseball World Series. Die größten Prominenten. Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna. Sie waren groß. Sie waren die Stars. Das waren die Prominente im Zeitalter der Massenmedien.

  • Donna J. Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”

    Donna Haraway’s text “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” was written in 1985, but it reads as if itwere written yesterday. A cyborg is a hybrid of living organism and machine. The cyborg is a person whose body has been supplemented by artificial components. The term is anacronym derived from “cybernetic organism.”

  • A New Alternative to Capitalism

    Let us reconsider two of the main arguments for the alleged superiority of capitalism over socialism. Both of these arguments were indeed valid in the past. But now we have advanced informatics and digital media technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, ubiquitous computing, blockchain, and the Brain-Computer Interface.

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