Our Popular MALAS Seminar, Open to All SDSU Graduate Students is Back for Fall 2021!!! Star Trek, Culture, and History, with Professor John Putman, Rides Again, Boldly Going Where No ... (You Know the Rest!)

MALAS 600B/History 537

Star Trek, Culture, and History

Dr. John Putman

Office: AL 557 | Phone: (619)594-4888 

Email: putman@sdsu.edu

MW 2 to 3:15pm

Star Trek, Culture, and History explores the cultural phenomenon known as Star Trek.  By reading critical academic studies of Star Trek and analyzing numerous episodes viewed in class, this course will address how Star Trek—its seven television series, thirteen movies, three animated series, and more than a thousand novels--reflected historical events, forces, and ideas from 1960s to the early 21st century. In particular we will investigate the relationship between the several television series and the larger historical and cultural context in which they took place. The course will also explore how Star Trek addressed important contemporary social and cultural issues, ranging from race and gender to sexuality and politics.

John Putman 

John Putman (Professor, University of California, San Diego, 2000) is a historian of the modern American West (late 19th and 20th centuries), particularly California and the Pacific coast states. His recent research emphasizes class and gender politics in the urban Northwest. His book Class and Gender Politics in Progressive-Era Seattle was published in 2008 by University of Nevada Press. His other publications include "’A Test of Chiffon Politics’: Gender Politics in Seattle, 1897-1917," Pacific Historical Review (November 2000) and “Racism and Temperance: The Politics of Class and Gender in Late 19th-Century Seattle,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (Spring 2004). Professor Putman’s current project is a comparative analysis of early 20th-century Pacific Coast expositions. He is also interested in the cultural history of the 20th century United States, in particular, science fiction and Cold War films, and the social and cultural meaning of Star Trek. His courses include the California History, the History of the American West, US History since 1945, Constitutional History of the United States and Star Trek, Culture, and History.  Professor Putman has a forthcoming chapter entitled, "Terrorizing Space: Star Trek, Terrorism, and History" in Star Trek and History(Wiley, April 2013) to correspond with the release of next Star Trek movie.