For 50 years, Star Trek has been an inspiration to its fans around the world, helping them to dream of a better future. This inspiration has entered our culture and helped to shape much of the technology of the early 21st Century. The contributors to this volume are researchers and teachers in a wide variety of disciplines; from Astrophysics to Ethnology, from English and History to Medicine and Video Games, and from American Studies to the study of Collective Computing Systems. What the authors have in common is that some version of Star Trek has inspired them, not only in their dreams of what may be, but in the ways in which they work - and teach others to work - here in the real world. Introduced with references to Star Trek films and television shows, and illustrated with original cartoons, each of the 15 chapters included in this volume provides insights into research and teaching in this range of academic fields.

The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek offers a synoptic overview of Star Trek, its history, its influence, and the scholarly response to the franchise, as well as possibilities for further study. This volume aims to bridge the fields of science fiction and (trans)media studies, bringing together the many ways in which Star Trek franchising, fandom, storytelling, politics, history, and society have been represented. Seeking to propel further scholarly engagement, this Handbook offers new critical insights into the vast range of Star Trek texts, narrative strategies, audience responses, and theoretical themes and issues. This compilation includes both established and emerging scholars to foster a spirit of communal, trans-generational growth in the field and to present diversity to a traditional realm of science fiction studies.

Since 1966, the Star Trek television franchise has used outer space and the thrilling adventures of the crews of the U.S.S. Enterprise to reflect our own world and culture. Kirk and Spock face civil rights issues and Vietnam war allegories while Picard, Data, and the next generation seek an ordered, post-Cold War stability in the Reagan era. The crews of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise must come to terms with our real life of war, manifest destiny in the 21st century, and the shadow of 9/11. Now, as the modern era of the franchise attempts to portray a utopia amidst a world spinning out of control, Star Trek remains about more than just the future. It is about our present. It is about us. This book charts the history of Gene Roddenberry's creation across five decades alongside the cultural development of the United States and asks: are we heading for the utopian Federation future, or is it slipping ever further away from reality?

Teaching Professional and Technical Communication guides new instructors in teaching professional and technical communication (PTC). The essays in this volume provide theoretical and applied discussions about the teaching of this diverse subject, including relevant pedagogical approaches, how to apply practical aspects of PTC theory, and how to design assignments. This practicum features chapters by prominent PTC scholars and teachers on rhetoric, style, ethics, design, usability, genre, and other central concerns of PTC programs. Each chapter includes a scenario or personal narrative of teaching a particular topic, provides a theoretical basis for interpreting the narrative, illustrates the practical aspects of the approach, describes relevant assignments, and presents a list of questions to prompt pedagogical discussions. Teaching Professional and Technical Communication is not a compendium of best practices but instead offers a practical collection of rich, detailed narratives that show inexperienced PTC instructors how to work most effectively in the classroom. Contributors: Pam Estes Brewer, Eva Brumberger, Dave Clark, Paul Dombrowski, James M. Dubinsky, Peter S. England, David K. Farkas, Brent Henze, Tharon W. Howard, Dan Jones, Karla Saari Kitalong, Traci Nathans-Kelly, Christine G. Nicometo, Kirk St.Amant

Videogames allow us to immerse ourselves in worlds that are reflective of cultural phenomena. At the same time, games are in the process of occupying and utilising the real world as a part of the game. The book provides a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to mixed reality through the lenses of game studies and pedagogy. These novel approaches invite the reader to rethink their conceptions of games and mixed reality. They are complemented with classical analyses of games and applications in educational contexts. In uniting theory and hands-on approaches, the book provides a broad spectrum that facilitates and inspires interdisciplinary thinking and work.

American Studies has only gradually turned its attention to video games in the twenty-first century, even though the medium has grown into a cultural industry that is arguably the most important force in American and global popular culture today. There is an urgent need for a substantial theoretical reflection on how the field and its object of study relate to each other. This anthology, the first of its kind, seeks to address this need by asking a dialectic question: first, how may American Studies apply its highly diverse theoretical and methodological tools to the analysis of video games, and second, how are these theories and methods in turn affected by the games? The eighteen essays offer exemplary approaches to video games from the perspective of American cultural and historical studies as they consider a broad variety of topics: the US-American games industry, Puritan rhetoric, cultural geography, mobility and race, urbanity and space, digital sports, ludic textuality, survival horror and the eighteenth-century novel, gamer culture and neoliberalism, terrorism and agency, algorithm culture, glitches, theme parks, historical guilt, visual art, sonic meaning-making, and nonverbal gameplay.

As a Slavic-speaking religious and ethnic “Other” living just a stone’s throw from the symbolic heart of the continent, the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina have long occupied a liminal space in the European imagination. To a significant degree, the wider representations and perceptions of this population can be traced to the reports of Central European—and especially Habsburg—diplomats, scholars, journalists, tourists, and other observers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This volume assembles contributions from historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and literary scholars to examine the political, social, and discursive dimensions of Bosnian Muslims’ encounters with the West since the nineteenth century.

For nearly 60 years, Star Trek has imagined humanity's future while reflecting its present. Star Trek: The Original Series debuted with three male leads, but in the wake of a Trek renaissance that began with Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, additional series have explored the frontiers of representation, making the present moment ripe for new critical engagement and thoughtful reflection on the narratives that have shaped the journey thus far. Using the lens of feminist criticism and theory, this collection of essays presents a diverse array of academic and fan scholars engaging with the past, present, and future of Star Trek. Contributors consider issues like Klingon marriage, Majel Barrett's legacy, the Bechdel-Wallace test, LGBTQ+ representation, and more. They offer updated readings on legacy characters while also addressing wholly new characters like Michael Burnham, Beckett Mariner, and Adira Tal. Their essays provide some of the first critical examinations of the newest additions to the Trek franchise, including Picard, Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks.

Spock, Data, Worf, B'Elanna Torres, Seven of Nine, Odo, Michael Burnham, Soji. Many of Star Trek's most beloved characters are children of two worlds, the products of competing biologies, materials, and cultures. Their popularity is unsurprising: authors mine conflicted identities for dramatic effect, and viewers see their own struggles reflected in the challenges of individuals who never seem to quite fit in. This book demonstrates that the tradition is not new. Spock and his fellow hybrids have their roots in anti-slavery literature. Abolitionist authors introduced protagonists who were both Black and White, yet not fully accepted as either. Divided at their core, the attempts of these noble yet tortured individuals to bridge their two races inevitably ended in tragedy. Gene Roddenberry and his successors thrust the character type into the future, using it to explore the evolving racial attitudes of their times. Star Trek's tragic hybrids have asked audiences to see beyond color, to embrace multiculturism, to accept mixed-race identity, and, finally, to acknowledge the consequences of systemic oppression.