Download or read book Star Trek and the Politics of Globalism written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Absolute, philosophized most saliently about by Georg Hegel, encompasses the entirety of reality. The absolute (reality) is composed of five dimensions – height, length, width, time, and justice. The five dimensions operate dialectically, and the normative values of reality inhere within the fifth dimension (justice) – hard, soft, moral, ethical, yellow, etc. ad infinitum. The normative values from the fifth dimension (justice), in combination with the brain, comprise the human mind. With the issues of climate change, world-wide biosphere destruction, nuclear weapons, international trade regimes, humanity has created the phenomenon of global politics – thereby changing the fifth dimension. The argument in this volume is that the broadcast iterations of Star Trek allow us to comprehend significant aspects of justice and the politics of globalism – created through the advent of science, technology, engineering, etc. The creators of Star Trek hold that nationalism is a psychological pathology and internationalism is rationality.
Download or read book The Politics of Star Trek written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-27 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Star Trek franchise reflects, conveys, and comments upon the key philosophical tensions of the modern era. This book details the manner in which these tensions and controversies are manifested in Star Trek across its iterations, arguing that Star Trek offers an indispensable contribution to our understanding of politics in the modern era.
Download or read book Popular Culture Conspiracy Theory and the Star Trek Text written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-04 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The forward progress of society is not automatic and should not be taken for granted. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 can be viewed as ending his effort to deploy American prestige and power to forward change worldwide. Today, there are political forces seeking to stop progressive social, political, and economic change. Whatever the reasons, such forces are conspiring to impose authoritarianism to suppress the public’s desire for just, democratic government. The brutality, violence, viciousness, and racism (dystopia) of authoritarianism are becoming more and more the hallmark of world politics. Perhaps the most glaring aspect of this dystopia is the fact that the American state has been almost continuously at war for the past thirty years—including a sinister, dastardly drone assassination program. One means to obscure the ongoing conspiracy to ultimately impose outright dictatorship on the American people and the rest of the world, is to smear and malign critics of this conspiracy as guilty of conspiracy theory—advocating and embracing baseless fantasies.
Download or read book Popular Culture and the Political Values of Neoliberalism written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reality is made up of the Absolute and Causality. The absolute (most saliently philosophized about by Georg Hegel) is where normative values inhere. Causality can be described as the measurable effects of the normative values of the absolute and the laws of physics (also ostensibly a product of the absolute). Humans are special insofar as they access the higher aspects of the Absolute – altruism, compassion, love, humor, science, engineering, etc. The Absolute also contains what can be considered the less attractive values or impulses: greed, lust for power, hate, self-centeredness, conceit, etc. Predicating society on what I deem the lower (spirits) aspects of the absolute (most prominently, greed) results in personal, social dysfunction and ultimately the end of civilization. Conversely, a society based on justice is stable and vibrant. Justice is a classless society, free of gender and ethnic biases. My argument is based on popular culture – especially the Star Trek franchise. One implication of my thesis is that capitalist values generate psychological neurosis and societal instability – even catastrophe. Additionally, the political values that dominate the current neoliberalist world system (and especially the American government) are the other, the will to power – resulting in war, and global political instability. Popular culture is germane to philosophy and contemporary politics because television/movie creators frequently try to attract viewers by conveying authentic philosophical and political motifs. Conversely, viewers seek out authentic movies and television shows. This is in contrast to opinion surveys (for instance), as the formation of the data begins with the surveyor seeking to directly solicit an opinion – however impromptu or shallow
Download or read book Star Trek s Philosophy of Peace and Justice written by José-Antonio Orosco and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countering the dystopic and the apocalyptic, Star Trek's Philosophy of Peace and Justice introduces political philosophical reflections on peace, justice, and non-violence through dramatic plots in the utopian Star Trek Universe. Using key insights from a global array of philosophers, thinkers, and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Angela Davis, Martha Nussbaum, Johan Galtung, and Desmond Tutu, José-Antonio Orosco guides readers through different Star Trek episodes, applying key concepts from peace and justice studies. In the Star Trek Universe, seemingly impossible realities, based on peace and justice exist indefinitely in a post-scarcity society marked by economic cooperation. Orosco continues its bold utopian mission and brings new challenges to the field of peace and justice studies that center anti-racism and intersectional theory to encourage the exploration, over conquest, of our own galaxy.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek written by Leimar Garcia-Siino and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-21 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science written by Clyde W. Barrow and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-14 with total page 813 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An indispensable and exemplary reference work, this Encyclopedia adeptly navigates the multidisciplinary field of critical political science, providing a comprehensive overview of the methods, approaches, concepts, scholars and journals that have come to influence the disciplineÕs development over the last six decades.
Download or read book A Different Trek written by David K. Seitz and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2023-07 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A different kind of Star Trek television series debuted in 1993. Deep Space Nine was set not on a starship but a space station near a postcolonial planet still reeling from a genocidal occupation. The crew was led by a reluctant Black American commander and an extraterrestrial first officer who had until recently been an anticolonial revolutionary. DS9 extended Star Trek’s tradition of critical social commentary but did so by transgressing many of Star Trek’s previous taboos, including religion, money, eugenics, and interpersonal conflict. DS9 imagined a twenty-fourth century that was less a glitzy utopia than a critical mirror of contemporary U.S. racism, capitalism, imperialism, and heteropatriarchy. Thirty years after its premiere, DS9 is beloved by critics and fans but remains marginalized in scholarly studies of science fiction. Drawing on cultural geography, Black studies, and feminist and queer studies, A Different “Trek” is the first scholarly monograph dedicated to a critical interpretation of DS9’s allegorical world-building. If DS9 has been vindicated aesthetically, this book argues that its prophetic, place-based critiques of 1990s U.S. politics, which deepened the foundations of many of our current crises, have been vindicated politically, to a degree most scholars and even many fans have yet to fully appreciate.
Download or read book Justice and Popular Culture written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 justice—more specifically, communism as a concept of justice.
Download or read book Popular Culture as Art and Knowledge written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume settles the debate between analytic and continental philosophy. It turns to art, more specifically popular culture, to demonstrate the validity of continental philosophy. Drawing on the philosophy of Georg Hegel (perhaps the most important of continental philosophers), James Kreines holds that reason in the world metaphysically exists. Reasons of the world are reasons of the Hegelian Absolute. Thus, similar to the fact that gravity is curves in the space-time continuum along which matter moves – reasons are the grooves in the Absolute along which human decision-making occurs. Art allows us to conceptualize, understand, speculate about the grooves (reasons) of the Absolute. Two key points can be drawn from Kreines’s position: first, normative values are embedded in reality. Thus, in complete contradistinction to analytic philosophy, there is no bifurcation between the empirical and the normative – to exist is to have normative value. Secondly, the role of social science is to cogitate, explore, identify the reasons of the world that shape social, political norms. Such an approach would decisively move the social sciences away from an emphasis on statistically significant patterns of human behavior (e.g., voting studies) and toward an approach that seeks to analyze the reasons of the world that motivate/shape social and political decisions. Art (particularly popular culture) becomes an important source in identifying the way that people reason about the world and how they perceive political elites reasoning in the world. To adjudicate between continental and analytic philosophy this book on relies on the broadcast iterations of Star Trek, as well as Nazi cinema. With regard to contemporary American politics, in addition to Star Trek, it draws on the television series Game of Thrones, Veep, House of Cards, and The Man in the High Castle. Popular culture is germane to philosophy and contemporary politics because television/movie creators frequently try to attract viewers by conveying authentic philosophical and political motifs. Conversely, viewers seek out authentic movies and television shows. This is in contrast to opinion surveys (for instance), as the formation of the data begins with the surveyor seeking to directly solicit an opinion – however impromptu or shallow.
Download or read book The Absolute and Star Trek written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-23 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explains how Star Trek allows viewers to comprehend significant aspects of Georg Hegel’s concept the absolute, the driving force behind history. Gonzalez, with wit and wisdom, explains how Star Trek exhibits central elements of the absolute. He describes how themes and ethos central to the show display the concept beautifully. For instance, the show posits that people must possess the correct attitudes in order to bring about an ideal society: a commitment to social justice; an unyielding commitment to the truth; and a similar commitment to scientific, intellectual discovery. These characteristics serve as perfect embodiments of Hegel’s conceptualization, and Gonzalez's analysis is sharp and exacting.
Download or read book To Boldly Stay written by Sherry Ginn and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-04-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ended over twenty-five years ago, there has yet to be a stand-alone assessment of the series. This collection corrects that omission, examining what made Deep Space Nine so unique within the Star Trek universe, and how that uniqueness paved the way for an altogether new, entirely different vision for Star Trek. If the Star Trek slogan has always been "to boldly go where no one has gone before," then Deep Space Nine helped to bring in a new renaissance of serialized television that has become normal practice. Furthermore, Deep Space Nine ushered in critical discussions on race, gender, and faith for the franchise, science fiction television and American lives. It relished in a vast cast of supporting characters that allowed for the investigation of psychosocial relationships--from familial issues to interpersonal and interspecies conflict to regional strife--that the previous Star Trek series largely overlooked. Essays explore how Deep Space Nine became the most richly complicated "sci-fi" series in the entire Star Trek pantheon.
Download or read book Steering Human Evolution written by Yehezkel Dror and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity must steer its evolution. As human knowledge moves a step ahead of Darwin’s theories, this book presents the emergence of human-made meta-evolution shaping our alternative futures. This novel process poses fateful challenges to humanity, which require regulation of emerging science and technology which may endanger the future of our species. However, to do so successfully, a novel ‘humanity-craft’ has to be developed; main ideologies and institutions need redesign; national sovereignty has to be limited; a decisive global regime becomes essential; some revaluation of widely accepted norms becomes essential; and a novel type of political leader, based on merit in addition to public support, is urgently needed. Taking into account the strength of nationalism and vested interests, it may well be that only catastrophes will teach humanity to metamorphose into a novel epoch without too high transition costs. But initial steps, such as United Nation reforms, are urgent in order to contain calamities and may soon become feasible. Being both interdisciplinary and based on personal experience of the author, this book adds up to a novel paradigm on steering human evolution. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, evolution sciences, future studies, political science, philosophy of action, and science and technology. It will also be of wide appeal to the general reader anxious about the future of life on Earth. Comments on the Corona pandemic add to the book’s concrete significance.
Download or read book The Politics of Star Trek written by Reinhard Kück and published by . This book was released on 2010-08-23 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book gives abrief summary of the main political issues dealt with in the TV-show. Other than my book "Star Trek:Politics" does it not give full episode descriptions. This book is an exerpt from my book "Star Trek:Politics", and for those readers who know already the bulk of Trek episodes.Abstract: in 704 episodes, Star Trek deliberates on mainly the same themes, i.e. friendship, tolerance, racism, feminism, capitalism etc. The themes vary in the way they are shown on TV or the silver screen. The political culture, which is the show's social environment, exerts its believe-systems on the franchise, which in return incorporates these political and cultural developments in its story. Star Trek actually is a true mirror of the political culture of the United States of America.This book is unauthorized by the makers of Star Trek films, broadcasts, merchandise, conventions etc.
Download or read book The Final Frontier written by Joel R. Campbell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposed book uses the Star Trek television/movie and Star Wars movie series to explain key international relations (IR) concepts and theories. It begins with an overview of the importance of science fiction in literature and film/television. It then presents the development of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, and discusses how their progression through time has illustrated key IR theories and concepts. As a bonus, it compares the two franchises to another recent science fiction franchise used to teach IR (Battlestar Galactica).
Download or read book The Politics of Star Trek written by George A. Gonzalez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-27 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Star Trek franchise reflects, conveys, and comments upon the key philosophical tensions of the modern era. This book details the manner in which these tensions and controversies are manifested in Star Trek across its iterations, arguing that Star Trek offers an indispensable contribution to our understanding of politics in the modern era.
Download or read book Invoking the Beyond written by Paul D. Collins and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2020-11-22 with total page 1031 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gnostic revival of the Enlightenment witnessed the erection of what could be called the “Kantian Rift,” an epistemological barrier between external reality and the mind of the percipient. Arbitrarily proclaimed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, this barrier rendered the world as a terra incognita. Suddenly, the world “out there” was deemed imperceptible and unknowable. In addition to the outer world, the cherished metaphysical certainties of antiquity—the soul, a transcendent order, and God—swiftly evaporated. The way was paved for a new set of modern mythmakers who would populate the world “out there” with their own surrogates for the Divine. Collectively, these surrogates could be referred to as the Beyond because they epistemologically and ontologically overwhelm humanity. In recent years, the Beyond has been invoked by theoreticians, literary figures, intelligence circles, and deep state operatives who share some variant of a technocratic vision for the world. In turn, these mythmakers have either directly or indirectly served elitist interests that have been working toward the establishment of a global government and the creation of a New Man. Their hegemony has been legitimized through the invocation of a wrathful earth goddess, a technological Singularity, a superweapon, and extraterrestrial “gods.” All of these are merely masks for the same counterfeit divinity... the Beyond.
