Jessamyn Neuhaus http://geekypedagogy.com @GeekyPedagogy January 2019 Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay: Studying Star Trek Supplement to Chapter Five, “Practice,” of Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (Morgantown: University of West Virginia Press, 2019) In Chapter Five of Geeky Pedagogy, I argue that “for people who care about student learning, here’s the best and worst news about effective teaching that you will ever hear: no matter who you are or what you teach, you can get better with practice. Nothing will improve our teaching and increase our students’ learning more than doing it, year after year, term after term, class after class, day after day” (146). I also conclude the book with a brief review of the four pedagogical practices described in the previous chapters, and note that “the more time we can spend just doing them, the better we’ll get at effective teaching and advancing our students’ learning” (148). The citations in Chapter Five are not lengthy and the chapter does not raise the need for additional citations from the scholarship on teaching and learning. There is, however, one area of scholarship that I would like to add to this book as a nod to my favorite geeky popular text: Star Trek (ST). ST is by no means a perfect franchise or fandom, yet crucial to its longevity is its ability to evolve, most notably in terms of diversifying popular presentations. To my mind, “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” will always be the most poetic, truest description of both a lived reality as well as a sociocultural ideal—as a teacher, as a nerd, and as a human being. Geeky Pedagogy, Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay, 1 I offer here not a comprehensive bibliography, but rather a sample of scholarly work published in the past fifteen years in the field of ST studies and which may be of interest to Geeky Pedagogy readers. Indeed, Star Trek studies offers some of the best examples of geeks, introverts, and nerds in academia doing our thing. Consumerism and Economics Like all mass media, Star Trek is a commodity, created to sell and to generate profit. For analysis of ST as part of the capitalist economy, see for example Dyomi Baker, To Boldly Go: Marketing the Myth of Star Trek (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2018); Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode, The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015); Tim Summers, “From ‘Sabatoge’ to ‘Sledgehammer:’ Trailers, Songs, and the Musical Marketing of Star Trek Beyond (2016),” Music and the Moving Image 11, no. 1 (2018): 40-65. On using Star Trek to examine issues of economics in our universe, see for example Dan Hassler-Forest, “Star Trek, Global Capitalism, and Immaterial Labour,” Science Fiction Film and Television 9, no. 3 (Autumn 2016): 371-391. For a study of the economic questions raised by Star Trek’s depiction of a post-capitalist world in which everyone’s basic needs are met, see Manu Saadia, Trekonomics (San Francisco: Pipertext, 2016). Cultural Studies No scholarly are boasts as much Star Trek scholarship as the multidisciplinary, pop culture-fluent field of cultural studies. These analyses include close readings of narrowly focused issues in the franchise such fashion, monsters, and music, as well as broader examinations of the TV shows and films as cultural texts and situated in cultural history. See for example Katharina Andres, “Fashion’s ‘Final Frontier:’ The Correlation of Gender Roles and Fashion in Star Trek,” Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research 5 (2013): 639-649; Michele Barrett and Geeky Pedagogy, Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay, 2 Duncan Barrett, Star Trek: The Human Frontier Second Edition (New York: Routledge, 2016); M. Keith Booker, Star Trek: A Cultural History (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018); Justin Everett, “The Borg as Vampire in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996): An Uncanny Reflection,” in Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms: Essays on Gender, Race, and Culture, ed. John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan (Kay) Picart (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009); Lincoln Geraghty, The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film, and Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007); Lincoln Geraghty, Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014); David Gerrold and Robert J. Sawyer, eds., Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, and the Vulcan Death Grip (Dallas: BenBella Books, 2006); Jessica Getman, “A Series on the Edge: Social Tension in Star Trek’s Title Cue,” Journal of the Society for American Music 9, no. 3 (August 2015): 293-320; Hannah Gunderman, “Blurring the Protagonist/Antagonist Binary through a Geopolitics of Peace: Star Trek’s Cardassians, Antagonists of the Alpha Quadrant,” Geographical Bulletin 58, no. 1 (May 2017): 51-62; Karen Hellekson, “Living With Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 19, no. 1 (2008): 112-156; Michael Hemmingson, “Sex and Star Trek: Amorous Androids, Interstellar Promiscuity,” Science Fiction Studies 36, no. 3 (2009): 572-577; Craig Owens Jones, “‘Acolytes of History?’ Jazz Music and Nostalgia in Star Trek: Next Generation,” Science Fiction Film and Television 9, no. 1 (2016): 25-53; Peter W. Lee, ed., Exploring Piccard’s Galaxy: Essays on Star Trek: The Next Generation (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018); Donald Palumbo, “The Monomyth in Star Trek (2009): Kirk & Spock Together Again for the First Time,” Journal of Popular Culture 46, no. 1 (February 2013): 143-172; Stefan Rabitsch, “‘And yet, everything we do is usually based on the English:’ Sailing the Mare Incognitum of Star Trek’s Transatlantic Geeky Pedagogy, Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay, 3 Double Consciousness with Horatio Hornblower,” Science Fiction Film and Television 9, no. 3 (Autumn 2016): 439-472; Tim Summers, “Star Trek and the Musical Depiction of the Alien Other,” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 7, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 19-52; Margaret Weitekamp, “Two Enterprises: Star Trek’s Iconic Starship as Studio Model and Celebrity,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 44, no. 2 (January-March 2016): 2-13; Carlos de Yarza, “Star Trek—Where No Genre Has Gone Before: Application of Mittell’s Television Genre Theory to the Star Trek Series,” Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 9, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 73-80. Embodied Identity: Race and Ethnicity One of the most intriguing aspects of studying Star Trek as a historian and as a professor of pop culture is considering the ever-evolving ways it represents racial and ethnic identity. From the well-documented intentions of the original series creators, who sought to depict a more racially diverse and enlightened future (and falling considerably short by contemporary standards) to the franchise’s variety of Native American representations to the first iteration of the series with an African American female lead, embodied racial and ethnic identity on ST is a rich and abundant source for academic exploration. See for example L.D. Alexander, “Far Beyond the Stars: The Framing of Blackness in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 44, no. 3 (July 2016): 150-158; Daniel Bernardi, “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations: Diegetic Logics and Racial Articulations in the Original Star Trek,” Film and History 24, no.1 (2013): 60-74; Harvey Cormier, “Race Through the Alpha Quadrant: Species and Destiny on Star Trek,” in SciFi in the Mind’s Eye: Reading Science Through Science Fiction, ed. Margret Grebowicz (Chicago: Open Court, 2007); Katja Kanzler, “‘A Cuchi Moya!’ Star Trek’s Native Americans,” American Studies Journal 49 (2007): Geeky Pedagogy, Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay, 4 http://www.asjournal.org/49-2007/star-treks-native-americans/#; De Witt Douglas Kilgore, “‘The Best is Yet to Come,’ or, Saving the Future: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Reform Astrofuturism,” in Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction, ed. Isiah Lavender III (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014); Allen Kwan, “Seeking New Civilizations: Race Normativity in the Star Trek Franchise,” Bulletin of Science, Technology, & Society 27, no. 1 (February 2007): 59-70; Michael Charles Pounds, “Explorers: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” in The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism, and the Speculative, ed. Sandra Jackson and Julie Moody-Freeman (New York: Peter Lang, 2011). Embodied Identity: Sexuality and Gender Like sci fi generally, Star Trek offers gender studies scholars a complex case study in popular representations of gender. The series is set in an explicitly egalitarian future, yet as a product of each era that produces it, ST includes its fair share of gender stereotypes. Similarly, the series has been, according to Bruce E. Drushel (cited below) “insufferably straight” for most of its history, but recent iterations bely that characterization, including the somewhat controversial reference to Sulu’s husband in Star Trek: Beyond (2016). (For a quick summary of some of the most trenchant issues at stake in that particular debate, see J. Bryan Lowder, “The Debate Over Sulu’s Sexuality in Star Trek Beyond Should Set off Your Red Alert,” Slate, July 8, 2016, https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/george-takei-is-right-sulu-shouldnt-be-gay-in- star-trek-beyond.html. For a counterpoint to Lowder’s take, see Ryan Gilbey, “Don’t Klingon to the Past, George Takei,” The Guardian, July 10, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/10/george-takei-gay-sulu-star-trek). Having just watched the franchise’s second gay male relationship (yay!) end SPOILER ALERT Geeky Pedagogy, Chapter Five Bibliographic Essay, 5 in one of the character’s neck snapping (sob!) on Star Trek Discovery (2018), I’m well aware that the show’s representations of sexual identity is ripe for scholarly analysis.* On gender identity, see for example Sandra Beyer, “A Utopia for Conservatives and Real Men: Sexual Politics and Gendered Relations in Star Trek,” in Envisioning American Utopias: Fictions of Science and Politics in Literature and Visual Culture, ed.