Boldly going where no course has gone before…
As featured on StarTrek.com: Trek Class: Exploring the Information Age from the Final Frontier
Star Trek, with five television series and eleven feature films, has remained a cultural phenomenon since first airing in the 1960s. With a reputation for intelligent and insightful storytelling, creator Gene Roddenberry’s unique vision of humanity’s future has inspired generations of people worldwide – from scientists to technologists, politicians to philosophers.
Although the Star Trek version of the future is often described as hopeful about human progress, the franchise portrays a universe still struggling to address many of the challenges we face while living in our own Information Age. This course will examine those issues by using the episodes and films of Star Trek as a launching point for discussion and analysis of some of today’s most pressing questions.
Throughout the semester, students will analyze a number of examples from Star Trek series and films — including episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager — in an effort to understand and explore topics of contemporary importance to the information field, including: careers of the Information Age, retraining a workforce for an information economy, digital distribution of information, dealing with an always-connected lifestyle, social networking, smart gird technology, security, privacy and much more.
In addition to classroom discussion, students will also contribute online to The Collective. Inspired by the Borg hive mind, The Collective will consist of blog posts, comments and tweets that provide additional reflection and information on the episodes and topics discussed in class.
A final assignment will challenge students to evaluate our own technology environments in comparison to the systems found on the Final Frontier.
This course is available to all Syracuse University students. A major or minor in the School of Information Studies is not required and there are no prerequisites.
You can read more about the course here:
ABC NEWS:
When Tweeters Meet Trekkies
SYRACUSE.COM:
Syracuse University professor relates ‘Star Trek’ to technology, society in new course
MY COLLEGE GUIDE:
To Boldly Go: Star Trek and the Information Age Class at Syracuse Univeristy
Registration information:
Spring 2012
IST 300, M003
Course #61136
T/TH 3:30 – 4:50
Life Sciences Building 105
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