Empire of the Sun: Fantasy & Erasure

Empire of the Sun: Fantasy & Erasure

Jenny Chan of Pacific Front Untold podcast joins Heather to discuss Asian representation--they focus their remarks on Empire of the Sun (Spielberg, 1987). Empire of the Sun stars a young Christian Bale in a historical war drama about the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1941 and a boy caught in a concentration camp with other British colonials. But the film is emblematic of challenges in other American films that should include characters from a variety of Asian nations but instead uses Asians as background set dressing. Jenny Chan is Director at Pacific Atrocities Education. Based in the Bay area, she is an alum of University of Illinois.

The Hunger Games: Gen Z Canon

Two Gen Z all-stars join Heather to discuss whether the Hunger Games influenced them or not as young people. Claire and Cyrus were once members of the high school chess team and they bring with them a long-term friendship that informs today's chat. Watch them react to each each other as much as they react to the films under discussion. Claire Cirelli is a software engineer in Phoenix, with a Bachelors from Arizona State University. Cyrus Kirby is a philosopher turned data engineer in Boston who just finished a MS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ikiru: Sustaining Change

Gareth Higgins, a Reconciliation scholar from Belfast, Ireland, talks to Heather about Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), a film about a city bureaucrat who decides to build a playground for a local women's group. While Akira Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films, Ikiru won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Gareth Higgins' most recent book, co-authored with Kathleen Norris, is A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality. He also helped found the Wild Goose, New Story and Movies & Meaning festivals. Gareth leads retreats in North America and Ireland; he co-founded The Porch community, and is deeply involved in transformative men’s work through The Storyteller and the Firekeeper. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Queen's University Belfast.

Bonus. Chief of War: Hawaiian Spirituality

Kawika Allen and Leone Saaga joined Heather for a bonus discussion about Chief of War (2024) and Hawaiian spirituality. Chief of War is a limited series created by Jason Momoa for Apple TV that tells how the Hawaiian islands were unified under Kamehameha in the face of encroaching Western colonialism. Chief of War has won multiple awards, including from the Critic's Choice for Social Impact. Leone Saaga teaches Hawaiian Language courses at Brigham Young University. Previously she has taught in multiple Hawaiian Language Immersion programs. She holds a Masters in Education with an emphasis on Teacher Leadership. Kawika Allen is the founder of and leads the Polynesian Psychology Education Research Team at BYU’s McKay School of Education. He is a co-editor of the Handbook of Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies from the APA. He holds a PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Rebecca: Twisted Fairy-Tale

Nina McConigley talks to Heather about her new novel How to Commit a Post-Colonial Murder (Pantheon, 2026) and how her feelings have changed about Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1941). Rebecca is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, which is itself a reworking of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, from 1847. And we only just realized that in this interview! Nina McConigley's short story collection, Cowboys and East Indians, won the 2014 PEN/Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. She was also a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship. She teaches at Colorado State University.