Science Fiction Film and Television seeks submissions for a special issue on “Star Trek at 50.”

Since its premiere on September 8, 1966, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek has become shorthand for liberal optimism about the future, even as the franchise’s later entries have moved towards increasingly dark depictions of aging (ST II-VII), war (DS9), lifeboat ethics (VOY), and post-9/11 securitization (ENT). This internal tension has now culminated in the rebooted “Abramsverse” depiction that — while nominally directed towards reinvigorating the franchise by returning it to its youthful origins— has seen the Spock’s home planet of Vulcan destroyed by terrorists (ST) and the Federation itself corrupted by a coup from its black-ops intelligence wing (STID).

SFFTV invites fresh approaches to Star Trek media in the context of its amazing longevity and continued popularity, with possible emphases on:

* revivals, retcons, and reboots

* canon and canonicity

* Star Trek and/as “franchise”

* fan cultures, fan productions, and fan sequels

* Star Trek ephemera and paratexts

* lost episodes and unproduced scripts

* parody and pastiche (Galaxy Quest, Star Trek XXX, “The Wrath of Farrakhan,” etc.)

* spinoff media like video games and comics

* Star Trek and politics

* Star Trek and science/technology/invention

* Star Trek and race

* Star Trek, sex, gender, and orientation

* Star Trek and disability

* Star Trek and aesthetics

* Star Trek and aging

* Star Trek’s influence on other works or on the culture at large

* Star Trek and other Roddenberry productions (The Questor Tapes, Earth: Final Conflict, Andromeda)

Articles of 6,000-9,000 words should be formatted using MLA style and according to the submission guidelines available on our website. Submissions should be made via our online system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com:80/lup-sfftv. Articles not selected for the special issue will be considered for future issues of SFFTV.

Any questions should be directed to the editors, Mark Bould (mark.bould@gmail.com), Sherryl Vint (sherryl.vint@gmail.com), and Gerry Canavan (gerrycanavan@gmail.com).

The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2015, with anticipated publication in Star Trek’s 50th anniversary year.

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Science Fiction Film and Television is a biannual, peer-reviewed journal published by Liverpool University Press. Edited by Mark Bould (UWE), Sherryl Vint (Brock University), and Gerry Canavan (Marquette University), with an international board of advisory editors, it encourages dialogue among the scholarly and intellectual communities of film studies, sf studies and television studies. We invite submissions on all areas of sf film and television, from Hollywood productions to Korean or Turkish sf film, from Sci-Fi Channel productions to the origins of SF TV in Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers or The Quatermass Experiment. We encourage papers which consider neglected texts, propose innovative ways of looking at canonical texts, or explore the tensions and synergies that emerge from the interaction of genre and medium. We publish articles (6000-8000 words), book and DVD reviews (1000-2000 words) and review essays (up to 5000 words), as well as archive entries (up to 5000 words) on theorists (which introduce the work of key and emergent figures in sf studies, television studies or film studies) and texts (which describe and analyse little-known or unduly neglected films or television series). Science Fiction Film and Television is hosted online by Metapress and is accessible at http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121631/. Online access is free to existing subscribers.