This wry and highly readable investigation of the role of space travel in popular imagination looks at the way NASA has openly borrowed from the TV show Star Trek to reinforce its public standing. It also celebrates the work of a group of the show's fans who rewrite its storylines in porno-romance fanzines. Constance Penley advocates that scientific experimentation be accompanied by social and sexual experimentation, and devoted to exploring inner as well as outer space.

In this investigation and celebration of America's fascination with space, Constance Penley, a professor of film studies and women's studies at the University of California, illustrates issues of sex and sexuality in the world of science and technology and examines the widely held prejudices against women in this area. 20 photos.

Star Wars begins with its famous title sequence, setting the story in the ancient past of a remote galaxy. Yet the phenomenal success of the film, the franchise, and its "expanded universe" is based upon its reflection of historical and cultural milieus here on modern-day Earth. This collection of new essays examine various ways in which George Lucas's saga touches upon contemporary social and political issues. Topics include the impact of the film's score on musical genres, feminism and NASA, the epic mimicry of Western-African and Bedouin cultural motifs, gender identity construction, Cold War narratives in radio and national mythology, and fan interpretations of authorship and authenticity.

This book introduces students to cultural studies of science and technology. It equips students with an understanding of science and technology as aspects of culture, and an appreciation of the importance of thinking about science and technology from a cultural studies perspective. Individual chapters focus on topics including popular representations of science and scientists, the place of science and technology in everyday life, and the contests over amateur, fringe and pseudo-science. Each chapter includes case studies ranging from the MMR vaccine to UFOs, and from nuclear war to microwave ovens. For students in cultural studies, media studies, sociology and science and technology studies.

Today's media, cinema and TV screens are host to new manifestations of myth, their modes of storytelling radically transformed from those of ancient Greece. They present us with narratives of contemporary customs and belief systems: our modern-day myths. This book argues that the tools of transmedia merchandising and promotional material shape viewers' experiences of the hit television series Star Trek, to reinforce the mythology of the gargantuan franchise. Media marketing utilises the show's method of recycling the narratives of classical heritage, yet it also looks forward to the future. In this way, it reminds consumers of the Star Trek story's ongoing centrality within popular culture, whether in the form of the original 1960s series, the later additions such as Voyager and Discovery or J. J. Abrams' `reboot' films. Chapters examine how oral and literary traditions have influenced the series structure and its commercial image, how the cosmological role of humanity and the Earth are explored in title sequences across various Star Trek media platforms, and the multi-faceted way in which Internet, video game and event spin-offs create rituals to consolidate the space opera's fan base. Fusing key theory from film, TV, media and folklore studies, as well as anthropology and other specialisms, To Boldly Go is an authoritative guide to the function of myth across the whole Star Trek enterprise.

In a world shrunk by modern transport and communication, Star Trek has maintained the values of western maritime exploration through the discovery of ‘strange new worlds’ in space. Throughout its fifty-year history, the ‘starry sea’ has provided a familiar backdrop to an ongoing interrogation of what it means to be human. This book charts the developing Star Trek story from the 1960s through to the present day. Although the core values and progressive politics of the series’ earliest episodes have remained at the heart of Star Trek throughout half a century, in other ways the story it tells has shifted with the times. While The Original Series and The Next Generation showed a faith in science and rationalism, and in a benign liberal leadership, with Deep Space Nine and Voyager that ‘modern’ order began to decline, as religion, mental illness and fragmented identities took hold. Now fully revised and updated to include the prequel series Enterprise and the current reboot film series, this new second edition of Star Trek: The Human Frontier – published to coincide with Star Trek’s golden jubilee celebrations – addresses these issues in a range of cultural contexts, and draws together an unusual combination of expertise. Written to appeal to both the true Trekker and those who don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars, the book explores and explains the ideas and ideals behind a remarkable cultural phenomenon.

Film and cinema.

Today, we are living in the New Space Age, where mass commercial space travel is almost within our grasp. This otherworldly possibility has opened up new cultural images of space, both real and fictional, and has caused fashion design and spacesuit engineering to intersect in new, exciting ways. Spacewear traverses this uncharted territory by exploring the changing imagination of space in fashion-and fashion in space-from the first Space Age to the 21st century. Exploring how space travel has stylistically and technologically framed fashion design on earth and how we need to revisit established design practices for the weightless environment, Spacewear connects the catwalk and the space station. This book draws together speculative fantasies in sci-fi films such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the engineered spacesuits Biosuit, and the NASA Z-2 and with catwalk interpretations by the likes of Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, André Courrèges, and Iris van Herpen. While the development of commercial space agencies has led to new concerns for style in garments for outer space that re-think fundamental design principles such as drape, high fashion has experimented with new possibilities for weightlessness that extend far beyond the 1960s vision of Space Age metallic fabrics and helmet-style headwear. Brownie takes the reader on a fascinating journey from fantasy to function and to form, deepening our understanding of this new category of fashion that is prompting new approaches to garment design and construction both on earth and in outer space.