The Self and Community in Star Trek: Voyager

After they are pulled 70,000 light-years away from Alpha Quadrant, the captain and crew of Star Trek: Voyager must travel homeward while exploring new challenges to their relationships, views of others, and themselves. As the first extended, critical study dedicated to Star Trek: Voyager, this book examines how the series uses the physical distance from the crew’s home quadrant and the effect this has on the dynamics among community formation, self-creation and a sense of place. Chapters cover topics such as time travel, leadership models, interspecies relationships, the impact of trauma, models of self-creation and individuality, environmental influences on groups and individuals, memory, nostalgia, and how spiritual experiences affect people. The holographic Doctor and the former Borg, Seven of Nine, stand out as complex and boundary-stretching figures.

Susan M. Bernardo is professor emerita at Wagner College. She lives in Glen Gardner, New Jersey.

Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University. He lives in Greenville, North Carolina.

C.W. Sullivan III is Distinguished Professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.

Susan M. Bernardo

Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 187
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6771-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4557-5
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1

Part I: Shaping the Self through Memory, Narrative, and Love 9
Chapter One. Memory and Identity: Reading Minds and Replacing Narratives 10
Chapter Two. Programming Love, Art, and Loyalties: The Case of the Doctor 27
Chapter Three. Alien Attraction and Interspecies Romance 42

Part II: Examining the Past and Re-Creating the Self 55
Chapter Four. Trauma, Disability, and Seven of Nine: Working through the Past and Imagining the Future 56
Chapter Five. “I did not experience that timeline”: Time Travel and the Importance of Community 71
Chapter Six. From Ray-Guns to Costume Drama on the Holodeck: Technology, Nostalgia, and Losing Control 84

Part III: Community, Environments, and the Self 97
Chapter Seven. The Borg Collective and the Voyager Family: Building Communities 98
Chapter Eight. Redefining Leadership and Alliances 113
Chapter Nine. “There’s Coffee in That Nebula”: Energy, Exigency, and Ecosystems 128
Chapter Ten. Spiritual Encounters in the Delta Quadrant 144

Afterword. Star Trek: Discovery: Hybridity, Environments, and Multiverses 159
List of Episodes 167
Bibliography 171
Index 177