To Go Where No Other Has Gone Before (Paperback)

The Star Trek television show, part of our popular culture for more than thirty years, reflects contemporary notions of gender and race that offer insight into American culture. However, the complex cultural narratives of Star Trek contain contradictory messages not necessarily supporting one clear ideology and there are moments when they openly question and resist dominant ideologies. Ultimately, there are times when these cultural narratives become potentially subversive, interrogating the ideological constructs of race, gender and power. In this book, Casavant analyzes the construction of race and gender in the original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, uses post-colonial theory to examine the ways in which power functions in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, offering that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the most subversive of all Star Trek shows, and examines how dominant constructions of femininity are both interrogated and reaffirmed in Star Trek: Voyager. The book also offers insight into shifts within dominant ideologies over the past three decades by examining the ways in which the cultural narratives of Star Trek both reflect and resist these prevailing paradigms.