Star Trek and Popular Culture: Television at the Frontier of Social and Political Change in the 1960s

The 1960s (a.k.a. the 60s) remains a terrain of contemporary politics—with the values of the period embraced or rejected, as well as differently interpreted. Popular culture (movies, television) is an important means to understand and analyze the political issues and controversies surrounding the 60s—egalitarianism, equality (civil rights, feminism), as well as anti-communism (including the American war in Vietnam). In important and key instances popular culture (especially Star Trek [1966-...