TIFF: Trek Talks: Mae Jemison on Star Trek and the Future
Astronaut, physician, and chemical engineer Dr. Mae Jemison participates in an on-stage conversation on the interplay between arts and science, and how sci-fi as a genre can carve out a space for often-excluded voices.
While Star Trek was set 300 years in the future, it was quite intentionally a reflection of the social and political issues of 1960s America. Using the science-fiction form as a vehicle to explore themes of cultural identity, diversity and tolerance, Gene Roddenberry and his collaborators offered commentary on issues such as feminism, environmentalism, and race relations. (The series has the famous distinction of airing the first interracial kiss on television, when Uhura and Kirk locked lips in the episode "Plato’s Stepchildren.")
The progressive values underlying Trek, and the series’ attempts to grapple with problems that remain pressing to this day, continue to resonate not only with fans, but with scientists, social justice advocates, politicians, activists, educators, and artists alike. In the face of such fraught contemporary issues as widespread migration and displacement, racially motivated killings, and LGBTQ human rights, the utopic promise of Star Trek — not only its vision for a future founded on justice and equality, but its use of popular media to bring such issues into mainstream discussion — is all the more inspiring, and vital.
Mae Jemison is an engineer, social scientist, and the former Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia. The first woman of colour to go into space, Jemison served six years as a NASA astronaut and was also the first astronaut to appear on Star Trek. Jemison founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence and is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in addition to sitting on the boards of several Fortune 500 companies. She was voted one of the top seven women leaders in a 2000 presidential ballot national straw poll for her integration of the physical and social sciences with art and culture to solve problems and foster innovation. Jemison is currently leading 100 Year Starship, a new initiative that aims to make human travel beyond our solar system a reality within the next 100 years.
Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: $23.75 (Adult), $19.25 (Senior/Student), $17.00 (Child/Youth)
Tickets: Online
Organized by: Toronto International Film Festival
Location: TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3C6
http://www.tiff.net/events/trek-talks-mae-jemison-on-star-trek-and-the-future