MA Thesis Help Required

[Moskvitz]

Dear fellow ST fans,
I am a student from Poland, currently majoring in American Studies. Star Trek has always been an important part of my life, it has given me a lot of joy and inspiration, and I think it's time to give something back.

Recently, I (along with my entire year, naturally) was asked by my thesis promoter to choose a thesis subject. I couldn't go all wild and do whatever I wanted, like "horror themes in American movies", "Phasers versus Zombies, a quasi-scientific dispute", etc. so I've decided to take a deeper look at the beauty of Star Trek - namely, how it affected the American audience, how it helped develop the society, what role did it play in i.e. fighting against racial prejudice, etc.

I want to show that Star Trek is not just another blank sci-fi series (like many people believe, especially academic professors), but a phenomenon.

I have watched the "Unseen Pilot", the half black and white, half colored, which later became a part of The Menagerie episode with commentating from Gene Roddenberry.

He spoke about how he involved women and African Americans in his series and how he put the 'No Smoking' signs aboard the Enterprise, all that in the 60's, which was not only amazing, but revolutionary.

And that is precisely what I need. I need examples of how Star Trek broke the rules, how it opened people's eyes, how it became a pioneer. Of course, I'd also like to write about other series, not only TOS. Explain how and why entire generations became amazed with ST, how almost each - if not every - episode carries a moral lesson, etc.

I am very sorry if all this sounds hectic, I don't know exactly how to put it... OK, let me shorten it to:

I need good proof, preferably based in literature, of the fact that Star Trek is amazing, and it would be awesome if said literature would contain details on how Star Trek was a precursor in breaking stereotypes, on its open-mindedness, on how it influenced people.

EDIT: Just to be clear. I am interested in books, not other dissertations, academic papers, etc. I understand there's been a lot of them, but I want to arrive at my conclusions by myself. So even if my thesis won't be original at all, I will still have the satisfaction of creating a piece that has not been influenced by other works of similar themes.

I will be SUPER grateful for any and all help given.

So: any books You guys and gals recommend ?

 

[Rosalind]

do you know someone has done a PhD thesis on Star Trek? University of Melbourne, I think, but I'm not sure. If you are going to do your MA thesis on ST, then you'll need to at least familiar yourself with that and whatever other peer-reviewed papers that's published on the subject. Otherwise, even if you did write your thesis, your examiner will not judge it favourably. One question that always gets asked in the review process is 'novelty of research', make sure your thesis covers an aspect that has not already been done by others.

good luck.

 

[Moskvitz]

I appreciate the advice, however Polish universities have quite a different policy than those of other countries, that is, they are more 'lenient'. At least with MA degrees. And it would be impossible for me to know of all the academic works that have been created on the subject of ST.

Naturally, the novelty of research is valid, however this is an MA thesis, not a PhD, which creates a huge difference.

I don't want to sound rude, but just to illustrate my case: last year a student from Sociolinguistics department did his MA paper on the language of Klingons. As much as this is an interesting subject, it definitely was not the first world wide and I know it was not particularly original either - it was original in terms on my country and university - but not of the subject matter.

My thesis will be a 'first', considering my uni and probably my country.

Sad as it may sound - nowadays almost everyone has an MA degree. And unless you study in a university of a very good reputation, the plagiarism filter is all your paper will have to endure. The originality is left to the student.

 

[Stevil2001]

Searching the MLA International Bibliography for "Star Trek" yields 84 peer-reviewed articles, and I am sure there are tons more than that.

WorldCat lists 136 theses for "Star Trek."

 

[Moskvitz]

I'm sorry, it looks like I haven't phrased myself well enough. Problems of using English as a second language I guess.

I am looking for books, not other academic papers. I want to base my paper on my own knowledge and what I can derive from published sources. Dissertations, as works of other students created for academic purposes would only influence my work in a bad way, making me steer off of my original course, or suggest an approach I haven't before considered.

Even if the final piece will turn out to be rather unoriginal, it will still be my own.

Please guys, I could really use a couple titles

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't see how a paper could lead you astray in a way that a book would not. Academic books do much the same thing as academic articles. They're just longer and harder to get through interlibrary loan. And they are definitely "published sources."

Surely the essence of academic writing is to use the works of others to "suggest an approach [you] haven't before considered"?

In any case, I don't know the answer. Star Trek Lives!, maybe? My usual technique for writing graduate school papers has been to look through WorldCat or other catalogs for every book I think could be vaguely relevant to my project.

 

[Harvey]

Inside Star Trek: The Real Story is a great place to start if you want a closer look at the production of the original Star Trek. Of course, you'll find out in that book that at least two of Roddenberry's claims from "The Unseen Pilot" are false. NBC never asked him cast the program with an all-white cast -- in fact the network dictated just the opposite (which didn't stop the cast of "The Cage" from being almost all-white, anyway). NBC also didn't ask that a strong female first officer be removed from the cast -- what they asked was that Roddenberry replace Majel Barrett (they didn't like her acting). He refused (no doubt because she was his mistress at the time) and the role was dropped.

If you're interested in fan studies, Henry Jenkins is probably the academic you'll want to look up. His book, Textual Poachers, devotes quite a few pages to Star Trek fandom, and there are others co-written by him that you'll want to seek out as well.

 

[Una McCormack]

Star Trek by Ina Rae Hark (BFI, 2008)

See here and here.

 

[Pauln6]

One interesting thing to examine is the way the gender roles and the racial mix of characters have changed over the years, particuarly since the most recent Trek movie has very nearly regressed gender roles back to the sixties. A comparison with how Battlestar Galactica updated the women's roles in its modern rebranding is also interesting. In fact NuBSG might give you a more modern context in which to re-examine Trek history.

 

[Moskvitz]

Surely the essence of academic writing is to use the works of others to "suggest an approach [you] haven't before considered"?

Yes, you're right. However you can call me lazy, but I'm not going to read through 130 dissertations just to filter out the ideas that are already dealt with. I've flipped through some of them at WorldCat and there are some theses that are identical even in the name.

And maybe we misunderstood each other with the 'published' sources. I tend to stick with published books as they tend to have more credibility in my eyes - I don't even know whether you can call a thesis on MLA IB or WC a 'published source'.

If you can this kind of brings me to what I wanted to mention previously - if I was writing a PhD, I'd spend years reading, studying, researching and making sure I'm creating a original and super valid dissertation. Not so much with an MA, especially that right now I am only supposed to present a general idea of what I'll be doing and for that I'd prefer to read some books first. I will be writing the actual thesis in a year. I also don't know how it is in US and other countries, but here we're swamped with regular classes till the very end, having super little time for writing the dissertation.

And thank you, I am grateful for the help.

@ Harvey and Una McCormack:

Thanks a ton for the interesting info and book recommendation, I will definitely have a look into it. Cheers!

 

[Moskvitz]

One interesting thing to examine is the way the gender roles and the racial mix of characters have changed over the years...

Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking of doing that actually. I've been doing some research on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and previous to that of one of Martin Luther King's speeches, where he quotes the Declaration - it's interesting to see that StarTrek had it's first official episode in 1966 with a African American crew members on board, I dunno if mentioning 1964's The Cage would be valid here...

I haven't thought of relating to the latest movie, that's an interesting idea. Thanks again! Although as you said, it seems to reflect the ST of the 60's, but wasn't that the idea?

As for BSG, I'm afraid that will carry me away from the study if StarTrek itself. I mean, it would be great as a source of comparison if it was close to release period of TOS, but it was more than a decade later.

Please forgive me if I sound like I'm whining, I'm just thinking aloud

 

[Pauln6]

One interesting thing to examine is the way the gender roles and the racial mix of characters have changed over the years...

Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking of doing that actually. I've been doing some research on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and previous to that of one of Martin Luther King's speeches, where he quotes the Declaration - it's interesting to see that StarTrek had it's first official episode in 1966 with a African American crew members on board, I dunno if mentioning 1964's The Cage would be valid here...

I haven't thought of relating to the latest movie, that's an interesting idea. Thanks again! Although as you said, it seems to reflect the ST of the 60's, but wasn't that the idea?

As for BSG, I'm afraid that will carry me away from the study if StarTrek itself. I mean, it would be great as a source of comparison if it was close to release period of TOS, but it was more than a decade later.

Please forgive me if I sound like I'm whining, I'm just thinking aloud

The Civil Rights angle is interesting (and more so to us Europeans who look back on that era of US history with incredulity) but it is well trod ground.

The reboot of Star Trek was intended to recapture the adventurous feel of the sixties version and since most of the original characters were male, it does reflect that dynamic. However, I find it interesting to note that even in the 21st century, most of the additional supporting characters with speaking roles that they added tended to be white males (unless there was a reason for them not to be, typcially girlfriends and mothers).

Battlestar Galactica overcame a similar problem with a clean reboot. None of the characters were intended to be the same people so some characters who had originally been male became female, including the original principle 'heroic bad boy' lead. It was a bit controversial but they pulled it off and what it shows is that a lot of the stereotyping we see in sci fi is purely down the the sexism of the writers and casting people. More to the point, the cast more generally appears to be a lot more balanced than any version of Star Trek with a lot of high profile recurring female characters instead of just a few like you tend to find in Trek. If you want to avoid retreading old ground too much using NuBSG as a modern comparator to show how Trek started out ahead of the game but has has begun to lag behind isn't a bad idea.

 

[Moskvitz]

The reboot of Star Trek was intended to recapture the adventurous feel of the sixties version and since most of the original characters were male, it does reflect that dynamic. However, I find it interesting to note that even in the 21st century, most of the additional supporting characters with speaking roles that they added tended to be white males (unless there was a reason for them not to be, typcially girlfriends and mothers).

Battlestar Galactica overcame a similar problem with a clean reboot. None of the characters were intended to be the same people so some characters who had originally been male became female, including the original principle 'heroic bad boy' lead. It was a bit controversial but they pulled it off and what it shows is that a lot of the stereotyping we see in sci fi is purely down the the sexism of the writers and casting people. More to the point, the cast more generally appears to be a lot more balanced than any version of Star Trek with a lot of high profile recurring female characters instead of just a few like you tend to find in Trek. If you want to avoid retreading old ground too much using NuBSG as a modern comparator to show how Trek started out ahead of the game but has has begun to lag behind isn't a bad idea.

I think the latest movie just wanted to be a copy of TOS, without changing much, perhaps that's why they didn't bother much with giving out more female roles, but true - it's a thing worth looking into.

When it comes to important females roles, I tend to look at DS9 and Voyager, after all DS9 had Kira, Dax, Keiko, Kai Winn, many strong positions, good and evil. Voyager had a female captain which is also important.

But your point of ST lagging behind NuGSG is a very interesting approach and may serve as a decent chapter. Thank you so much for the input!

 

[Pauln6]

One thing I alway find interesting about Voyager is that if not for Chakotay insisting that she give Belanna a chance, she would have had an all male command crew. Don't be too fooled by them giving high profile positions to key female characters. Always strip out the top layer and see what's underneath. DS9 did do the best in terms of the women they used but there were a lot fewer of them than men.

 

[Moskvitz]

One thing I alway find interesting about Voyager is that if not for Chakotay insisting that she give Belanna a chance, she would have had an all male command crew. Don't be too fooled by them giving high profile positions to key female characters. Always strip out the top layer and see what's underneath. DS9 did do the best in terms of the women they used but there were a lot fewer of them than men.

Absolutely true that, I know I may sound kinda naive, I just love the series, but I'm always trying to analyze things more thoroughly

And you can't forget about 7 of 9 :P

 

[Pauln6]

One thing I alway find interesting about Voyager is that if not for Chakotay insisting that she give Belanna a chance, she would have had an all male command crew. Don't be too fooled by them giving high profile positions to key female characters. Always strip out the top layer and see what's underneath. DS9 did do the best in terms of the women they used but there were a lot fewer of them than men.

Absolutely true that, I know I may sound kinda naive, I just love the series, but I'm always trying to analyze things more thoroughly

And you can't forget about 7 of 9 :P

Don't forget about her completely. Orinally Kim was going to be axed and she was going to be a man. Why they couldn't replace a man with a woman is anybody's guess. When they decided to axe Kes instead, she became a woman. Their casting process says a lot about their attitude to the sex of the characters.

 

[Moskvitz]

OK, you got me lost here. I'm not that savvy with the crew thing.

Could you please elaborate on this?

 

[Pauln6]

OK, you got me lost here. I'm not that savvy with the crew thing.

Could you please elaborate on this?

They wanted to bring in a borg character but wanted to keep the number of actors the same so one of the other cast members had to go. Originally it was planned to be reasonably dull Ensign Kim but they discovered that he was a popular asian role model or something. Jennifer Lien was starting to have problems with the prosthetic make-up (hence they gave Kes long hair) and they were having trouble thinking of suitable plots for her because she was stuck in sick bay doing very little. So Kes was written out and Seven was re-written as a woman (and what a woman!).

My point is, Seven worked great as a woman but nobody thought of replacing Harry Kim with a female character.

 

[Moskvitz]

Superb, thank you

I bet I'll discover a lot of interesting facts like this one while reading through some of the books I've ordered. And what you said indeed makes for an interesting point.

 

[Astraea]

OK, you got me lost here. I'm not that savvy with the crew thing.

Could you please elaborate on this?

Originally it was planned to be reasonably dull Ensign Kim but they discovered that he was a popular asian role model or something.

Actually, I think Garrett Wang was voted one of People magazine's Top 50 Most Beautiful People that year, and TPTB decided that they couldn't get rid of somebody with that kind of publicity.

I also think DS9 did the best with their female characters - but it also has the largest supporting cast, and no Trek series (outside of the novels) has ever had a main cast that was at least 50% female.