Star Trek and Star Wars

The Enlightenment versus the Anti-Enlightenment

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by George A. Gonzalez

Type: Studies
Subject: One Film > Star Trek (TV Series)
Keywords: Star Trek, sociology
Publishing date: 2022
Publisher: Peter Lang
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 132 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-4331-9770-3

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Book Presentation:
In Star Trek and Star Wars: The Enlightenment versus the Anti-Enlightenment, George A. Gonzalez shows that these two behemoths of popular culture put the Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment before the viewing public. Star Trek is arguably the popular culture vehicle most reflective of the Enlightenment: a belief in political and social progress, leading to a society that is modern, classless, and totally free of gender and ethnic biases. The Star Wars franchise, meanwhile, is seemingly the artistic embodiment of the anti-Enlightenment: societal progress (to the extent that it occurs) is solely a function of technology and not a perfecting of justice and fairness. Gonzalez shows that this reflects the pessimism and demoralization underlying the Trump phenomenon and the rise of anti-democratic, virulent nationalism.

About the Author:
George A. Gonzalez (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1997) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He is the author of Star Trek and Popular Culture: Television at the Frontier of Social and Political Change in the 1960s (also published by Peter Lang).

See the publisher website: Peter Lang

See Star Trek (TV Series) (1966–1969) on IMDB ...

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