Abstract
This article considers the work of Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Anthropological Machine’ (2004) in the depiction of human-nonhuman interactions in Star Trek . While Star Trek aims to present a utopian vision of the future, a contradictory reading is equally plausible . Instead of embracing novel encounters with nonhuman life and technology, Star Trek retreats into an idealized vision of the human . Encounters with the nonhuman become vehicles through which to reinforce this vision of a bounded and pure human subject . In Star Trek, humans are made to be human through their constant encounters with nonhuman forms, and the possibility of nonhuman flourishing is constantly foreclosed upon . However, in foregrounding these boundary struggles, Star Trek unwittingly deconstructs its own vision of the human subject . The more difference that Star Trek presents, the more apparent it becomes that the human subject to which it is compared is itself an unstable entity .
Recommended Citation
Barber, Jacob
(2017)
"Star Trek and the Anthropological Machine: Eliding Difference to Stay Human,"
The Geographical Bulletin: Vol. 58:
Iss.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/thegeographicalbulletin/vol58/iss1/5