Call for Participation: AAG 2016
Session Title: Star Trek and Geography: Boldly exploring representation and affect in popular culture across space and time
Session Description:
San Francisco serves as both the site of the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers and the fictional headquarters and charter site of Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets and Starfleet Headquarters. This panel session, building off of the impressive developments of last year’s Doctor Who panel, will continue to expand the society’s exploration of the integration of popular culture and geographical understanding. Star Trek can and has been utilized in many instances as a reflection of broader geographical problems, concepts, and trends, but there are also the geographical implications of Star Trek and the spatial and philosophical impact the franchise’s six series, twelve movies, and plethora of literature, conventions, and merchandising have had internationally.
The topics that will be discussed in this panel range from popular geopolitics and the reflections of current events in Star Trek, to critical race theory and the dialogue of African American and Indigenous rights, and to political ecology and various critical dialogues of nature, humanity, and environmentalism.
We welcome geographers who would be willing to further extend and elaborate on the very wide ranging topic of the geographies of Star Trek, and hope, by doing so, will stimulate further dialogue both within the panel and from the audience.
If you are interested in being a part of this panel, please contact Mark Rhodes at mrhode21@kent.edu
Organizers:
Mark Rhodes (Kent State University)
Fiona Davidson, PhD (University of Arkansas)
Hannah Gunderman (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Sponsorship:
Communication Geography Specialty Group
Cultural Geography Specialty Group
Political Geography Specialty Group