Star Trek and Imperialism with Rebecca Robb

• Day: Thursdays
• Dates: March 13 – April 17, 2025
• Time: 9:30am – 11:30am
• Location: Online, via Zoom
• Price: $175+HST

Zoom Information will be sent by email 1-2 days prior to the lecture date.

Overview

This series will boldly go where no one has gone before, deep into the realm of Star Trek ethics. We will examine one episode each week, asking whether Star Trek lives up to its ideals. We ask if Star Trek’s aim to seek out new worlds is an imperialist project. We will also take a good hard look at the “prime directive”. This ethical rule, central to Star Fleet, claims It is wrong for ‘advanced’ space-faring societies to interfere with people who have not developed space-faring technology. To help us address these questions I will introduce key ethical theorists including Charles Mills, John Stuart Mill, Amartya Sen, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, John Rawls, and Martha Nussbaum. I hope you will join me on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, as we lovingly put Star Trek under the moral microscope. 

About the Lecturer

Rebecca Robb is a PhD candidate in Ethics and Public Affairs at Carleton University. She holds a Bachelor of Philosophy from the University of Victoria and a Master of Philosophy from Carleton University. Her teaching philosophy centres on an interdisciplinary approach to ethics. While ethics is a branch of philosophy, Rebecca finds it can also be approached through theology, literature, history, or other academic disciplines. At its most basic, the study of ethics is the study of what makes an action morally right or wrong. Rebecca especially enjoys connecting with students new to the discipline. Her focus is always on engaging students in dialogue and encouraging them to bring their life experience to the study of philosophy.

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