Sexual Generations: Star Trek: the Next Generation and Gender - Softcover

Roberts, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252068106 ISBN 13: 9780252068102

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1999

Synopsis

Boldly going where no one has gone before, Robin Roberts forges intriguing links between feminist politics and theory and the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.   This lively discussion shows how science fiction's ability to make the familiar strange allows Star Trek to expose and comment on entrenched attitudes toward gender roles and feminist issues. By having aliens or sexually neutral beings enact female dominance or passivity, experience pregnancy or maternity, or suffer rape or abortion, Star Trek provides viewers with a new perspective on these experiences and an antidote to explicit and implicit cultural biases.   Roberts maintains that the relevance of Star Trek: The Next Generation to feminist issues accounts as no other factor can for the program's huge following of female fans.
The incisive and innovative readings in Sexual Generations provide food for thought about how the final frontier can clarify pressing questions of our own space and time.
     

About this title

Review

"Roberts is arguing for a truly 'high art,' forged out of gender theory and the highly popular Trek episodes. But it is not only high art she is talking about; it is the cultural history of our century."-Donald M. Hassler, editor of Extrapolation: The Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Studies "A new and worthwhile addition... The issues raised in this book, and on the show itself, are certainly valid and offer a rich field for discussion." - Science Fiction Research Association "Roberts has put together a thorough, rigorous, and insightful analysis of gender in The Next Generation, covering both the elements that imagine a different space-time and the contradictions that derive from contemporary sociopolitical norms... An ideal book to use in courses that address contemporary television, science fiction, media feminism, and, of course, Star Trek." -- Daniel Bernardi, Science Fiction Studies ADVANCE PRAISE "Roberts is a superb explicator of Star Trek: The Next Generation, offering stunning analyses of the figures of the female ruler, the perfect female mate, the female alien as a reworking of the story of the tragic mulatto, and the antiromance perspective of the rape episodes."-Jane Donawerth, author of Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction

About the Author

Roberts is of Louisiana State University.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252068106
• ISBN 13: 9780252068102
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224