SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hello all you lovers of Star Trek in this group! I know I'm not the only one. I'm so excited to tell you about this:

I just heard that my friend and Science Fiction scholar, Amy H. Sturgis, is finally giving another online college level course (which you can take for credit or audit) with Signum University. It's called

Exploring Star Trek

Detailed info and registration is here: https://signumuniversity.org/catalog/...

The Blurb: Now in its sixth decade, the multimedia Star Trek franchise has engaged the imaginations of generations of fans. Star Trek creators have refined many of the ingredients of Star Trek storytelling over the years, including using the metaphors of science fiction to both wrestle with timeless moral dilemmas and philosophical questions and also make timely critiques of political and social problems. Other aspects of Star Trek, such as its optimistic (even utopian) vision of the future, have been complicated and revised from time to time. This course will explore how Star Trek has changed science fiction and popular culture not only through producing hit TV series, films, novels, games, and merchandise, but also by precedent-setting global fan participation in the form of fan campaigns, conventions, and transformative works (fan fiction, film, cosplay, etc.). How does each installment of the Star Trek story embody the hopes and fears of the time in which it was made? How has the imagination, innovation, and diversity displayed in Star Trek changed our reality today and kept (or perhaps failed to keep) the franchise relevant? How has Star Trek storytelling evolved, and where will it go next? These are some of the questions we will consider as we boldly go where no Signum University class has gone before.

Special Note: New York Times bestselling author Una McCormack will be a special guest for one meeting of this class at 1:00 pm ET on Saturday, June 19, 2021.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Why should we explore Star Trek?

Week 2: The Original Series (1965-1969)

Week 3: The Rise of Fandom and the Animated Series (1968-1974)

Week 4: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

Week 5: The Film Franchise (1979-2002)

Week 6: Deep Space 9 (1993-1999)

Week 7: Multimedia Storytelling and Transformative Works (1967-present)

Week 8: Voyager (1995-2001)

Week 9: Enterprise (2001-2005)

Week 10: The Kelvin Timeline (2009-2016)

Week 11: Discovery (2016-present)

Week 12: Picard and Beyond (2020-present)

Cool! If I could attend in person, or read the lecture notes, I'd be thrilled. I see that she's an author, and have added two books from her page to my lists, but none of them seem to cover Star Trek similar to the way the course does.

How fun!

Amy also does a segment on StarShipSofa once a month and has done since the inception. “A look back into Genre History” which is just awesome. The most recent about Lois McMaster Bujold.