Exploring Star Trek: Voyager: Critical Essays

In 1995, Star Trek: Voyager brought a new dynamic to Star Trek's familiar, starship oriented, show. Lost 70,000 light-years in space, Voyager and its crew faced an uncertain and changeable future, echoing anxieties felt in the United States at the time. These fifteen essays explore the context, characters, and themes of Star Trek: Voyager, as they relate to the culture and zeitgeist of the 1990s. Essays on gender show how the series both challenges and reinforces typical SF stereotypes through the characters of Captain Janeway, Kes and Seven of Nine, while essays on identity examine the show's intersections with disability studies, race and multiracial identities, family dynamics, and emerging AI and humanity. Using the epic journey of Homer's Odyssey as a starting point for the series, and ending with an examination of the impacts of inception at the birth of the internet age, this book shows the many ways in which Voyager negotiated different perspectives for what the future of the galaxy and the USA could be.

Choice

“A delightfully entertaining and informative collection...recommended”

PopCultureShelf.com

“Great reading for Star Trek fans”

The Journal of American Culture

“offers strong examples of theoretical and critical scholarship which highlight Voyager and its importance within American studies.”

Journal of Popular Film and Television.

“a welcome companion to previous critical volumes…provides readers with an up-to-date perspective on the series and our contemporary world”

About the Author

Robert L. Lively is a professor of English at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada. His work has appeared in Rhetoric Review, Popular Culture Review, Tormented Space, Wormhole Weapons, and Uncharted Territories: Critical Explorations of the Farscape Universe.

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