To Boldly Stay

Despite the fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ended over twenty-five years ago, there has yet to be a stand-alone assessment of the series. This collection corrects that omission, examining what made Deep Space Nine so unique within the Star Trek universe, and how that uniqueness paved the way for an altogether new, entirely different vision for Star Trek. If the Star Trek slogan has always been “to boldly go where no one has gone before,” then Deep Space Nine helped to bring in a new renaissance of serialized television that has become normal practice.

Furthermore, Deep Space Nine ushered in critical discussions on race, gender, and faith for the franchise, science fiction television and American lives. It relished in a vast cast of supporting characters that allowed for the investigation of psychosocial relationships—from familial issues to interpersonal and interspecies conflict to regional strife—that the previous Star Trek series largely overlooked. Essays explore how Deep Space Nine became the most richly complicated “sci-fi” series in the entire Star Trek pantheon.

Sherry Ginn is a retired educator currently living in North Carolina. She has authored books examining female characters on science fiction television series as well as the multiple television worlds of Joss Whedon. Edited collections have examined sex in science fiction, time travel, the apocalypse, and the award-winning series Farscape, Doctor Who, and Fringe.

Michael G. Cornelius is a professor of English and director of the Master’s of Humanities program at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He is an award-winning novelist and the author or editor of numerous scholarly works.

Edited by Sherry Ginn and Michael G. Cornelius

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 219
Bibliographic Info: appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8540-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4628-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
Michael G. Cornelius and Sherry Ginn 1
Part One. Narrative: Creating and Crafting the Story of Deep Space Nine
“Every choice we make has a consequence”: Serialized Storytelling in Star Trek’s Episodic Universe
Val Nolan 21
The Static Space Opera: Dispersed and Sedimental Saturation of the Star Trek Storyworld
Florent Favard 38
Thinking Space: Identity and Cognition in Deep Space Nine
Franklin R. Halprin 54
Trauma, Psychological Development, and the Triumph of Kira Nerys
Sherry Ginn 67
“A very unformed being”: Odo’s Rhizomatic Journey Toward Selfhood
Erin Bell 86
Part Two. Race, Gender, Religion: Examining Themes and Tropes Illustrated on Deep Space Nine
Class Division and Biopolitics in “Past Tense”
Douglas Rasmussen 105
The Unkillable Idea of Benny Russell: Afrofuturist Temporalities and “Far Beyond the Stars”
Dylan Reid Miller 124
(Un)Radical Feminism: Gender and the Limits of Imagination
Rowan Bell 135
Sisko’s Conversion Experience and the Secularism of William James: Exploring Faith, Religion, and the Visions of the Prophets
Drew Chastain 151
Traversing/able Sacred Space: The Bajoran Wormhole as Spiritual Journey
Michael G. Cornelius 165
Epilogue
Sherry Ginn 181
Appendix A: List of Deep Space Nine Episodes by Season 191
Appendix B: List of ­Non–Deep Space Nine Star Trek Episodes Cited in Text 199
Appendix C: Star Trek Filmography 201
About the Contributors 203
Index 205

“All the essays are fun to read, and they pin their subjects just as you would expect… A must for Star Trek audiences and those who muse about the future of mankind living in communities in space alike.”—Popcultureshelf.com