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Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek

by Taylor Harrison, et al., eds.

Star Trek and its sequels have tantalized the imagination for 30 years. Both the technological marvels and the egalitarian social relations are inspirational. But is this world really so idyllic?

The 12 essays that make up Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek expose flaws in the utopian façade painted by Star Trek. The majority of the essays focus upon The Next Generation, while the remainder concern the original series or the Star Trek movies.

Employing the techniques of postmodern textual criticism, the authors disclose how today’s racial, sexual, and colonial problems colour the future as it is represented in North America’s favourite fantasy. Influenced as they are by thinkers such as Baudrillard, Jameson, and Derrida, the authors write in an academic language that will be off-putting to uninitiated casual fans or hardcore Trekkies.

This lack of popular appeal is not in itself a problem. Sometimes difficult arguments require specialized language. In two cases, “Worf as Metonymic Signifier” by Leah R. Vandeberg, and “Star Trek, Latency, and the Neverending Story” by Ilsa J. Bick, the author’s expertise does yield insights. The criticism is developed from the episodes in question, the specialized concepts used only where appropriate, and with explanations that facilitate understanding.

The same cannot be said for the remaining papers. Too often these efforts employ jargon as an end in itself, applying it to episodes in uncharitable and incomprehensible fashion. These pieces appear to be mere staging grounds for virtuoso displays of the authors’ vocabularies. Moreover, they are highly repetitive, with each author returning to the same episodes to make the same points about Federation colonialism, Troi’s sexuality, or the contradiction between the democratic aims of the federation and its military organization.

Valuable insights are dwarfed in rambling diatribes that fail to prove their key assertions. The authors try desperately to prove their radical, anti-authoritarian credentials, but ironically, only by submitting to the authority of their academic specialty, and without ever letting the reader forget that they are authorities whose words must be accepted.

 

Reviewer: Jeff Noonan

Publisher: Westview/HarperCollins

DETAILS

Price: $30

Page Count: 450 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 0-8133-2899-3

Released: Oct.

Issue Date: 1996-8

Categories: Criticism & Essays