Justice and Popular Culture: Star Trek as Philosophical Text

(Hardback)

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Description

This book examines how the Star Trek franchise does more than reflect and depict the political currents of the times. Gonzalez argues that Star Trek also presents an argument as to what constitutes a just, stable, thriving society. By analyzing Star Trek, this book argues that in order to obtain true democracy and justice the productive forces of society must be geared toward achieving a thriving society, the whole individual, and the environment. This dialectic is consonant with the notions of revolutionary change, progress postulated by Karl Marx and examined within this text. The book concludes that the only way to hope to avoid a planetary cataclysm is through justicemore specifically, communism as a concept of justice.

Reviews

Dr. Gonzalez is one of the most illuminating and interesting of current thinkers on the meanings, implications, legacy, and political value of Star Trek in all of its many incarnations. -- David Greven, author of Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek
In Justice and Popular Culture, George Gonzalez deploys his encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Trek franchise to illustrate how popular culture invites mass audiences to actively engage in the discourse of justice and political theory. Gonzalez documents how Star Trek in its many iterations enacts a serious dialog on questions of class, race, gender, and the state. He concludes that Star Trek points us toward a thriving classless society free of racial and gender biases (communism), while simultaneously warning us that the world is at a critical turning point which could just as likely end in a dystopian dark age. -- Clyde W. Barrow, University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley

Author Bio

George A. Gonzalez is professor of political science at the University of Miami.