Janet Murray, "Lord Burleigh's Kiss"

(In Hamlet on the Holodeck)

- Star Trek holodeck as a storytelling medium (employing familiar literary genres)
- Mostly game-like adventure stories, but the Victorian gothic story demonstrates a more "serious" approach
- Virtual/real distinction anxiety (like all new representational media)
- Huxley's Brave New World, Bradbury's Farenheit 451
- Limitations of print media as a positive thing (makes its illusions easier to resist)
- Computers and video games especially are the new source of anxiety (cyberpunk, etc.)
- Optimistic holodeck vs more dystopic visions
- Control over the medium (being able to turn it off or close the book) allows us to retain our humanity (simplistic understanding of control?)
- Link to the long human tradition of storytelling
- "Safe space" for exploring ourselves
- All media become transparent and irrelevant over time and only the "truth" contained within (ie: content, story) matters (?!)