Star Trek PhD Thesis Wins Academic Prize 348
An anonymous reader writes "A PhD thesis based on Star Trek has won an Australian university's top academic prize. Dr Djoymi Baker's 90,000 word dissertation 'Broadcast Space: TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek' was awarded the University of Melbourne's Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in the PhD. Dr Baker watched over 700 Star Trek episodes — more than 624 hours — to investigate the relationship between ancient mythology and today's popular culture. American academics thought her research was 'superlative' and suitable for teaching."
Slashdot Motto: The Next Generation (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a doctor, not an editor! Not kill I.
It's an article, CmdrTaco, but not as we know it. Ahead mod factor five.
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There's a lot of good science fiction that becomes science, just as good metaphysics eventually becomes physics. Every breakthrough begins with an idea, and the best ideas have their source in the imagination. A lot of kids who watched Star Trek grew up as engineers and scientists (um, and a few went wierd with golf ball retrievers, but hey -- we're an elite group here)
*"The Doctor is On", Firesign Theatre, "I think we're all Bozos on this bus".
Re:Slashdot Motto: The Next Generation (Score:4, Funny)
My God, Jim, it's a nitpicker!
Re:Slashdot Motto: The Next Generation (Score:5, Funny)
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Yep... (Score:4, Funny)
Not yet, but maybe soon (Score:5, Funny)
Finally Star Trek is gaining the academic recognition it so richly deserves. Having Trekology as an official subject for a BS degree should be coming up soon at all major mail order universities. Live long and prospers.
Maybe some day those who embrace the Federation's Ideals can be accepted on a jury or even in public office.
stardate 2006.828 i've successfully been elected to the town school board. the squabbling is terrible and nothing ever gets done. i've never felt in need of a phaser so much in my life.
Trek? Easy. Buffy? Now You're Hardcore (Score:2, Flamebait)
The real, industrial-strength pseudo-scholars [tennessean.com] who want to watch TV rather than crack a book turn their tight-leather-clad attention spans toward Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And I know from pop culture pseudo-scholarship: I once got an "A" in my
On that note.. (Score:2)
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It may not be high art, but I bet their aren't that many shows that are worthy of serious academic study.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
(For those unfamiliar, this was an episode early on in the series. Some random character at a space station wanted to disassemble Data to study him. After talking with this dude, Data decided that he hadn't the proper background knowledge to be able to reassemble him when he was done, so refused to undergo the procedure. The guy got an admiral to order Data from the Enterprise to go with him for the experiments, so Data resigned Starfleet. Starfleet responded by claiming that Data was its property and didn't have the right to resign, so Data went to a trial/hearing type thing so that a judge could decide. Picard argued that Data had the right to resign, and Riker was ordered to take the opposite side. (They didn't have any actual lawyers at this space station, so the top-ranking officials acted, though Riker against his will.) The episode was essentially about what constitutes life.)
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Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Not knocking this; but this theme goes back to the very first SF story, Frankenstein (1818). And more recently, Isaac Asimov's robot stories in the 1940s and 50s. Trek is fun, but not highly original in its storylines.
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You pose that as a rhetorical question, but it seems to me it's a legitimate one. I take it that your answer is "no"? In that case, what other kinds of machines would not be allowed to be dismantled? Suppose you, Flyboy Connor, are the native English speaker carrying out the rules in a Chinese Room Experiment [utm.edu]. Someone submits to you a batch of symbols written in
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
You pose that as a rhetorical question, but it seems to me it's a legitimate one. I take it that your answer is "no"?
I would say that Picard's argumentation was that Data could not really be distinguished from a living, sentient being, so that the ruling should be in his favor. His vision was that if the judge would allow Data to be "enslaved" because he was ruled not to be sentient, the judge should be very clear about where the line is drawn, because that would open the door to the enslaving of all kinds of races.
The supposedly rethorical question is not legitimate (in this episode), because the existence of a soul is not brought forth as an issue by either Picard or Riker. It should not play a role in the judge's ruling. The answer should be "no" with or without Data having a soul.
And if you ask my personal opinion: I do not believe in the concept of a soul as a separate entity that occupies our bodies and can exist after death. So I say that I have no soul. And still I do not wish to be dismantled. The fact that I admit that I have no soul is no reason to dismantle me. The fact that I can express the genuine wish not to be dismantled should secure my rights in that respect.
But if I was just an entity in a Chinese Room experiment, with no other desires and wishes than just to translate scribbles to different scribbles, it seems to me that I am not sentient. So, if there comes a day that I am reduced to that, please dismantle me.
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The way you Americans abbreviate Bachelor of Science is most appropriate, as your suggestion seems like complete BS ;)
Sure, she got a Ph.D., but . . . (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sure, she got a Ph.D., but . . . (Score:5, Funny)
The fact that I know what you're talking about makes me want to cry.
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Heathen!
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However, I'm now eager to know how were the "Ferengui manners" Nog dealt with the test, and all I can find are those shameful wpedia clones...
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SlashScholar. (Score:4, Funny)
Now all we need is a PhD thesis based on several years of reading slashdot.
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Sadly, I've spent 624 hours reading slashdot in this month alone...
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Today's "true" myths (Score:5, Interesting)
But there are still some people who manage to insist they are real, actual events! - UFO religions like the Scientologists or heaven's gate.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that our current mythology is fiction, Star Trek and the like are at least Science Fiction: not based upon the supernatural, but instead upon testable, and currently tested theories and ideas.
Amazing: even as culturally advanced as we fancy ourselves, we still retain those ancient urges to believe in the fantastic. But
perhaps that's because so much in this universe is actually fantastic; far more, in fact, than we ever imagined.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the late, great Dr. Feynman: "Far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the
past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if
he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?"
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Star Trek based on science? Muahahahah, *wipes eye* that was hilarious. It's like the definition of unrealistic and unscientific sci-fi, a fantasy series with a weak blanket of "science" shoved on top.
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Re:Today's "true" myths (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Today's "true" myths (Score:5, Funny)
We did have one episode where Kirk built a gunpowder cannon to survive the Gorn....
Okay, okay...I'll shut up.
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Star Trek is space opera. Entertaining? Sure. Scientific? Not so much.
Re:Today's "true" myths (Score:4, Interesting)
It's interesting that you picked the SSC for your example.
John Cramer [washington.edu] (a physics professor at the University of Washington) wrote a book entitled Einstein's Bridge [amazon.com]. It's what he calls "hard science fiction", about how the SSC was actually built and resulted in an invasion by a hostile intelligence. The protagonists somehow travel back in time and manipulate the political process so that the SSC is never built.
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That your argument? One device which is in hundreds of science fiction, fantasy and god knows what books and movies?
We have now teleported particles - one at a time, albiet
Given that the teleporter was in Star Trek because shuttle landings cost too much money to film you're not making a good case for yourself at all. Again most of fantasy has some teleportation in it.
String theory and loop quantum gravity theory don't seem to mind th
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In the past, myths were used to explain the unexplainable at he time: stars, weather, seasons, etc. Today, I believe myths have a different use. Despite the fact that we know they are made up, fantasy worlds such as star trek, star wars, lotr, help us to escape what amounts to the daily grind. We get up, go to work, go home, make dinner for most of our lives, with a week or two o
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Anyway... The scientific references in Star Trek (pick your series) are just as specious and mythological as the two religious movements that you cited. There is nothing, dear Trekkie, NOTHING about Star Trek that is inherently less fantastic, less supernatural, and more scientifically grounded than stories about Xenu, spaceships sha
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That's an interesting question, and a good point: Is the "greater truth" not fact itself?
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The Horses Name was Physics [barnesandnoble.com]
The Horse's name was Physics,
and they rode it well.
The only difference was this:
Some chose to flog the horse,
some flogged themselves.
A book of poems about the development of atomic theory from WWI to the atomic bomb, although it deals mostly with the personalities involved and not the atom itself.
KFG
Not necessarily. (Score:5, Insightful)
And to reinforce those in each generation.
Myths tell us what is "good" and what is "bad".
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Is it published? (Score:2, Insightful)
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The only thing that seems odd... (Score:2, Insightful)
Commercial success != cultural impact (Score:2)
Star Trek was a huge cultural phenomenon for years after its cancellation. It was fans that got Paramount to wake up and make the first Star Trek movie. Terms like "Beam me up, Scotty" were part of pop culture well before the franchise was reborn in 1979.
In this respect it is akin to Tolkien's works, which enjoyed widespread popularity for decades before Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies were a smash hit. The Rankin/Bass Hobbit movie and Bashki's ill-fated Lord of the Rings film didn't diminish the
I didn't believe it... (Score:5, Informative)
79 Original Trek Episodes
178 Next Gen Episodes
176 Deep Space Nine Episodes
172 Voyager Episodes
98 Enterprise Episodes
Which totals 703 episodes. He didn't even need the 22 Animated Series episodes.
Wow.
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-Peter
Re:I didn't believe it... (Score:5, Funny)
And a cute one too [slayage.tv]
I'm sure I will go to that special hell for reducing a PhD to a sexist remark. :-)
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She's smokin hot, and has a PhD. in Nerdology.
which makes her way out of the league of pretty much every slashdotter.
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Not 79 episodes, dumbass, there were, uh...
Sorry, I'm not enough of either a Star Trek or a South Park dork to remember how that goes.
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I love the animated series.
Remember that one where Kirk meets the devil.
The sort of thesis that came out of it was that there is no good and evil; just something else. I wonder how that fits with ancient mythology.
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I'd wager 500 quatloos one of them was Spock's Brain
Re:I didn't believe it... (Score:5, Informative)
Now that Star Trek's over, it's interesting to see exactly how much Star Trek there is (canon only, add 660 minutes/11 hours if you include The Animated Series):
Movies:
The Motion Picture: 132 minutes
The Wrath of Khan: 113 minutes
The Search for Spock: 105 minutes
The Voyage Home: 119 minutes
The Final Frontier: 107 minutes
The Undiscovered Country: 113 minutes
Generations: 118 minutes
First Contact: 106 minutes
Insurrection: 103 minutes
Nemesis: 116 minutes
Episodes:
The Original Series: 79 (3713 minutes @ 47 minutes/episode)
The Next Generation: 178 (8010 minutes @ 45 minutes/episode)
Deep Space Nine: 176 (7920 minutes @ 45 minutes/episode)
Voyager: 172 (7740 minutes @ 45 minutes/episode)
Enterprise: 98 (4116 minutes @ 42 minutes/episode)
Movies Total: 1132 minutes (18 hours, 52 minutes)
Episodes Total: 31499 minutes (524 hours, 59 minutes)
Grand Total: 32631 minutes (543 hours, 51 minutes)
That's 22 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes of Star Trek. Not bad...
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I think I going for my Pschology or Sociology... (Score:5, Funny)
Djoymi Baker watched 700 episodes - 624 hours without ads - of Star Trek and its spin-offs, dating from 1966 to 2005, in the name of research.
But for me it would be:
Anonymous Coward watched 700 episodes - 624 hours without ads - of pornography and its cum-shots, dating from 1966 to 2005, in the name of research.
Too Much Work... (Score:2)
Wouldn't reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces [wikipedia.org] been easier? This guy must've been a major slacker in school to watch that much Star Trek and still get a degree.
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In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Star Trek vs Star Gate on mythology. (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Trek? My bet would be that the first few seasons of Star Gate would give much more away on that.
Futurama called the whole mythology thing (Score:5, Funny)
Crowd chants: "All power to the engines!"
Darn, must now go for my second choice (Score:4, Funny)
Abstract: In the spirit of the best human qualities, Anonymous Cowards seeking public yet anonymous recognition show formidable selflessness. By doing away with the link between benevolent exposure of ideas and karma gratification they elevate public commentary to a social reinforcement of Insightful, Interesting and Funny: all essential components of high achievements. This in turn strengthens the Blog medium with not only cohesive forces but justifies the Anonymous Cowards with legitimacy beyond what have been observed throughout the history of the Internets. Their willingness to start from scratch over and over yet still earn the respect of their peers hardly justifies the "coward" epithet and proves that comments, even at -1, are a gold mine for those seeking understanding of TFA.
We will show that Anonymous Corwardiness is alive and well and that despite sometime adverse moderation, this modern tradition offers by its unique qualities a look inside the human soul.
What's Truly Amazing Here (Score:3, Interesting)
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Until Voyager came along ...
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Read This Where? (Score:2)
PhD thesis on Star Trek- Skip the english version, (Score:3, Funny)
Goes to show... (Score:5, Interesting)
ST: The Energizer Bunny of TV (Score:2)
He could have taken all of Slashdot's (Score:2)
Star Trek Inspirational Posters (Score:2)
http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_in
Enjoy slashdotters!
Please don't Slashdot this site, this guy needs donations.
Re:Myth and Star Trek??? (Score:4, Informative)
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But you miss the main point, which is thanks to the magic of Deconstruction [ucl.ac.be], you can read anything you want into anything you want. So of course Star Trek has embedded myth, any embedded myth you want. It also contains deep wisdom about how post-feminist transgendered dialogs can be resolved in a quasi-imperiali
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"That stop sign might mean to stop blinking
The nearly static meanings of things within a language and region allows for the development of culture at all. Sure, reinterpretation takes place, but its still very slow compared to say the changes in fashion culture.
PS. Star Trek contains many overarching my
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Yeah, I realized as soon as I hit "submit" that that was a bit strong.
What I meant was that there was no overarching "story" that was this one gigantic myth. Star Trek, being written by a lot of people with a lot of beliefs over a lot of time, certain does have recurring themes, but for any given overarching theme you can find an episode that seems to contradict it.
It had strong tendencies but
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Mind, my PhD is in Computer Science, so all that humanities stuff is more or less the same to me. If you can't code it, it isn't good enough!
That's why they call it academic... (Score:2)
Re:Proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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I meant would, not wouldn't.
check out the others... (Score:3, Informative)
Not all PhD's. But in this case...I'm a little inclined to agree. No offence to the talented and fetching Dr. Baker, but here are the other three winners of the U of Melbourne's Chancellor's Prize of Excellence:
(1) "Penelope Smith (Social Sciences), who used economic modeling to better understand business cycles in Australia and large Group of 7 economies - drawing information which is critical for setting fiscal and monetary policy."
(2) "Mart
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Re:check out the others... (Score:5, Insightful)
I could go on a rant about how medicine may allow us to live, but culture makes life worth living, but it would be a stretch to say that Dr Baker is producing culture. What she is doing is helping us understand our own culture. When we foster a society that can engage critically with its own culture and media, we have a culture that is less susceptble to the influence of those who would use media to control the public. We gain understanding, or at least perspective, on the other cultures surrounding is and the cultures that preceded us, and we also open doorways to a brighter future. How many people do you think became engineers or scientists thanks to watching Star Trek as children? Couldn't Jules Verne and Meliés deserve some credit for inspiring certain elements of our journeys to the mood and beneath the oceans?
As someone currently in college, currently studying animation (but finding myself drawn away from the practical side and towards the theoretical side) I often grapple with the feeling that I'm devoting a lot of my time, my youth and my mental energy to something that could quite possibly be considered irrelevant. On some level it's possible to say that research using Star Trek is fairly inconsequential, but ultimately, devoting research to it goes back to one of my favorite adages of philosophy, Socrates. The unexamined life is not worth living. If no one examines Star Trek, is it worth watching?
Maybe less useless than you think (Score:3, Insightful)
Dunno.
It's been famously stated that those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. I'd suggest that those who do not study myths are condemned to act them out.
Many of may have been taught abouth myth in this way: Myth is obsolete science. Zeus is just a primitive mind's way of explaining lightning without the benefit of understanding electricity. I know I was taught this way. However, if you look at a myth like Cupid and Psyche, it's obvious
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Be realistic, most jobs contribute in their way. If everyone researched cancer, we'd all starve to death and swim around in our sewage. If people didn't have a few moments to sit back and relax with a book or a show, we'd all be the poorer for it -- not just in quality of life but how often does it happen that a random thing seen or read, of no apparent value, will spark a
You're validating his point. (Score:2)
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The website you gave *was* http://snltranscripts.jt.org/ [jt.org]
Re:Star Trek (Score:4, Funny)
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And only Bones could fix the brain-melt she must be suffering after 624 hours of Trek. It must have been like a dagger in the mind. [wikipedia.org]
Crap, I'm a nerd.