Teaching Star Trek as Anthropology

The original Star Trek television show is a “natural” for teaching anthropology. Like all science fi ction, the show is a refl ection of contemporary concerns--a form of mythology. Beyond this, the original show relied extensively on anthropological theory and ethnography in the construction of its plots. The author’s undergraduate course, described in this paper, aims to make students aware of these and also of the concerns of the nineteen-sixties (Viet Nam, the Cold War, civil rights, Hippies) that motivated many of the episodes. In the process, it illustrates how popular culture texts can be used in the classroom to engage students in ongoing anthropological debates and to demonstrate anthropology’s enduring perspectives and concepts.

Media studies · Sociology · Star trek · Anthropology · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Leadership, Courage, and Heroism Studies · Race, History, and American Society