Gossip on the Enterprise
5. February 2024Autistic scifi protagonists
7. February 2024Music has always played a prominent role in Star Trek, for example the iconic theme from the Original Series by Alexander Courage or the film scores by Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and Michael Giacchino. But music also played a role in the plot itself time and again: Riker as a jazz trombonist, Data on the violin and Picard with his Ressican flute, the singing Doctor in Voyager, Vic Fontaine in Deep Space Nine or the Klingon opera.
In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Subspace Rhapsody”, however, the series producers have staged an episode entirely as a musical for the first time in the history of Star Trek. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Captain Pike and his crew find themselves in a situation where they suddenly start singing.
The lecture explores this episode and shows why it is a small but complete musical. Comparisons will be made to other musical episodes such as Scrubs or Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it will be discussed whether Star Trek is suitable for musicals at all.
Lecturer: Dr. Sebastian Stoppe
Duration: 60 min - The Lecture will be held in: germanDr Sebastian Stoppe is a media scientist and consultant for online communication at the Saxony-Anhalt State Institute for School Quality and Teacher Training in Halle (Saale).
He completed his doctorate at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg with a thesis on the television series Star Trek as a political utopia and previously studied communication and media studies, political science and medieval and modern history at the University of Leipzig. In addition to numerous works on Star Trek, he has also published research articles on film music and computer games.
Sebastian is a sought-after expert on Star Trek and is a regular guest on radio programmes, podcasts and television. His new book "Is Star Trek Utopia?" was published in English by McFarland Publishers in 2022. In 2024, he and Katja Kanzler will publish the book "Star Trek: Gestern - Heute - Morgen, (Selbst-)Historisierung und Zukunftsvisionen" about the new Star Trek series.
Sebastian lives in Leipzig, Germany.