Star Trek and History: Race-ing toward a White Future - Hardcover

Star Trek is an enduring icon in American popular culture. For many viewers, the science fiction series represents the bold exploration of the unknown and the humanistic respect of the foreign and the alien. In fact, it is """"Star Trek""""'s vision of a utopian future where humans no longer engage in racism, sexism, capitalism, among other """"-isms"""" that many fans claim is the main reason for their loyalty. But is the visionary """"Trek"""" future world truly colourblind? """"Star Trek and History"""" traces the shifting and reforming meaning of race articulated throughout the """"Star Trek"""" television series, feature films, and fan community. Daniel Bernardi investigates and politicizes the presentation of race in """"Star Trek"""" in the original series of the 1960s, the feature films and television spin-offs of the 1980s and 1990s, and the current fan community on the Internet. Through both critical and historical analysis, the book proposes a method of studying the framing of race in popular film and television that integrates sociology, critical theory and cultural studies. Bernardi examines the representational and narrative functions of race in """"Star Trek"""" and explores how the meaning of """"race"""" in the science fiction series has been facilitated or constrained by creative and network decision-making, by genre, by intertextuality, and by fans. He interprets how the changing social and political movements of the times have influenced the production and meaning of """"Trek"""" texts and the ways in which the ongoing series negotiated and reflected these turbulent histories.

DANIEL L. BERNARDI is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Film and Television at the University of California-Los Angeles. He is the editor of The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of United States Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 1996).