Ever since Star Wars became a franchise -- immediately after the release of A New Hope - -there have been a wide variety of efforts to structure, explain, and systematize its ever-expanding narrative universe. Going under various names, including the "Extended Universe," the Star Wars franchise beyond the core films has always been somewhat contentious, both as markers of fan knowledge and as potential for nearly endless corporate profit. What was originally kept in a vast archive of narrative data at Lucasfilm led to a hierarchy of canons and canonicity, which was distributed back to fans via elaborate reference books and contained within Star Wars plots as holocrons kept as lore in Jedi and Sith temples. This paper examines the fate of that canonicity in the wake of the 2012 purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, exploring how various aspects of these already commodified franchise elements have been contained and redeployed as Disney both continued the Skywalker saga of films and elaborated the Star Wars franchise in new ways.
narrative project Teaching Poor: Voices of the Academic Precariat. Both have left academia for greener pastures, but they were kind enough to share rough drafts and contact information, which aided this collection tremendously. And although we have never met in person, I know we would all become fast, rabblerousing friends.
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