Notes on: Exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, by boldly studying and celebrating Star Trek

Yesterday was this years Fan Studies Conference at DePaul Univeristy: A Celebration Of Star Trek. For the past 4 years the amazing Paul Booth has put together fantastic conferences around various fandoms. I have made it to each one so far: Doctor Who, Joss Whedon, Supernatural, and most recently Star Trek.

Now to start I would say that I am culturally aware of Star Trek but I would not consider it one of my top fandoms. Most of my references come from TOS with a little TNG and a touch of DS9, with little to none from Voyager or Enterprise. Last week I watched one episode of each of the Star Trek franchises so I would have a general reminder of who all the characters were before the conference. Despite a weaker background in Star Trek yesterday's conference was both informative and fun.

I love these DePaul Conferences because they provide the opportunity to go to panels on non-everyday topics. The first panel I went to was "A dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars: History, Myth and American Culture in Star Trek" by Lincoln Geraghty. This talk included a discussion about the 3 roles of History in Star Trek.

• Real History and Real History repeating itself
• Creating fictional Star Trek history 
• Representing real history in a science fiction context 

Lincoln also discussed how Star Trek is an open text where viewers have the opportunity to have multiple different readings of an episode, and a meta text which allows readers to place themselves into the text.

Before the next panel began I was struck by some notes, left over from a previous panel, looking at where each Star Trek franchise fell between focusing on The Intent of Actions (TOS, TNG) vs The Impact of Actions (DS9, Enterprise) placing voyager in some murky middle ground. 

During the "Generations of Trek: Film, TV, and The evolution of Star Trek" panel there was a very interesting discussion which look at the cultural context and other big shows during each Star Treks run.  

Decade	Star Trek series	Other Big Shows	American Historical Context
60’s	TOS	Batman	60’s
80’s	TNG	Dynasty	Reagan's America
90’s	DS9, VOG	X files, Buffy	Prosperity, so entertainment could go darker
2000’s	Enterprise	Battlestar Galactica	9/11

There was also discussion about how it began to be hard for fans to keep up with the multiple series, in these pre-streaming days, and many gave up especially when the channels that were showing these shows kept moving them around into various time slots. There was an additional  conversation around how the various movies have struggled because they often became star trek light (Star Trek Flavored but trying to gain a wider audience while never being given the budget to really do so)

Brannon Braga discussed his long history with Star Trek. He discussed Star Trek both as a writer and as a producer. From the fact that writing/producing 26 episodes a year was a real nightmare to the fact that his method is to write 4 hours everyday. He also discussed Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek as apolitical, secular, and beyond social justice to the point where there is no injustice. That everyone has a place in this future and that this is the future we want. He also said that Star Trek was left alone by TV executives because they did not really understand Star Trek but it was popular so they were not going mess with it. He ended with the wisdom that a writer with never succeed if they are not helped along the way. That you can not be a writer for a TV show all by yourself.

Lisa Klink discussed the writing process. She was for a time a script reader which helped he hone her craft by making her have to explain why a story worked or did not work. She also explained how it is important to look for the weakpoint/challenge for that character. She went into some detail about how writing rooms work and how stories are broken out and how stories change throughout the process of being made. One thing which stood out to me was the impact of having a female headed writing room on the depth of character of the female characters. Lisa also mentioned that when writing for different characters, they should each have such a strong voice, you should be able to remove the names and still have it be clear who each person is. She also reminded us all that "No matter what you do, no matter how good it is, someone will hate" and that you can't take this to heart.

Next I saw a lovely Leonard Nimoy Tribute by John Tenuto and Maria Jose Tenuto. I knew very liitle about Leonard Nimoy beyond him being Spock and it was fascinating to learn about his childhood.  I had not realized all the wonderful and kind things he had done nor how he did everything from act, to sing, to write poetry. It was a really touching moment and I even teared up. Afterwards in the Q & A there was a brief discussion about how we connect to these kind people and even though we have never met them it does not mean they have not touched our lives. This tribute also made me think about how I will want to remembered in the future and what I need to do now for that to happen.

Last but not least I ended on a fun note. I learned about the making of and the history of "Klingon Christmas Carol" and the process of taking A Christmas Carol, Re-writing it from a Klingon point of view, and then translating it into Klingon. (They even had certain words created for them by the person who officially is in charge of the Klingon language.)

Like every year Paul Booth's Fan Studies Conference at DePaul University was a great experience. I can't wait to hear what next year's fandom will be.

How have you been impacted by Star Trek? Comment below.