To Go Where No Other Has Gone Before

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.