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The tensions between utopian dreams and dystopian anxieties permeate science fiction as a genre, and nowhere is this tension more evident than in Star Trek. This book breaks new ground by exploring music and sound within the Star Trek franchise across decades and media, offering the first sustained look at the role of music in shaping this influential series. The chapters in this edited collection consider how the aural, visual, and narrative components of Star Trek combine as it constructs and deconstructs the utopian and dystopian, shedding new light on the series' political, cultural, and aesthetic impact.
Considering how the music of Star Trek defines and interprets religion, ideology, artificial intelligence, and more, while also considering fan interactions with the show's audio, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of music, media studies, science fiction, and popular culture.
List of contents
Preface; Jay Chattaway
- Introduction: Hearing Utopia in Star Trek; Jessica Getman, Brooke McCorkle Okazaki, Evan Ware
- Star Trek: The Original Series, Utopian/Dystopian Spaces, and Music; Amanda Keeler
- The Trouble with Trebles: Orchestration and False Utopias in Star Trek: The Original Series; Reba Wissner
- Tracks for Trek: Music in Network Ads for TOS; James Deaville
- From Spock with Love: Fan Audio, Participatory Media, and Circulating the Materials of Star Trek Fan Culture; Kate Galloway
- Loving Lwaxana, Trek's Sonically Disruptive Diva; Josh Morrison
- I, Musician: Humanity, Music, and Artificial Intelligence in the Star Trek Franchise; Jessica Getman
- Not Logical, but Often True: The Evolving Role of Religion in Star Trek's Utopia; Naomi Graber
- Sinatra in Space: Music for Hope and Loss Beyond the Final Frontier; Timothy Summers
- Markers of Utopian Difference: Music in Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) and Voyager (1995-2001); Paul Sommerfield
- No, They're Not Gonna Change My Mind: Anti-Fandom and the Enterprise Title Cue; Evan Ware
- Navigating Contrasting Styles in the First Three Star Trek Film Scores; Louis Niebur
- Songs of the Final Frontier: Listening to Whales in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Sarah Kessler
- Days of Utopia Past: Nostalgia and the Star Trek (2009) Soundtrack; Brooke McCorkle Okazaki
- Epilogue: The Conflicted Utopias of Star Trek's Renaissance (2017-); Jessica Getman, Brooke McCorkle Okazaki, Evan Ware
About the author
Jessica Getman is an Assistant Professor of Musicology/Ethnomusicology at California State University, San Bernardino, and a film musicologist focusing on music in television and science fiction media.
Brooke McCorkle Okazaki is an Assistant Professor of Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She specializes in opera of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, film music, and the music of modern Japan.
Evan Ware is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His scholarship focuses on reinterpretation and meaning in popular and film/television music.
Summary
This book breaks new ground by exploring music and sound within the Star Trek franchise across decades and media, offering the first sustained look at the role of music in shaping this influential series.
