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Primitive Culture: A Star Trek History and Culture Podcast

Aug 13, 2020

Frankenstein and the Star Trek universe.

Originally published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking gothic novel Frankenstein has been a major influence on many works of dystopian science fiction—so much so that many critics argue she invented the genre. Star Trek itself has borrowed from the...


Apr 3, 2020

Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes’s famous maxim is one that any self-respecting Starfleet science officer could live by. So it should come as no surprise that Star Trek’s two most-celebrated rational...


Dec 28, 2019

Dante in the Delta Quadrant.

Far away from home, everyone could do with a guide. That’s true whether you’re a 14th-century Italian poet embarking on an ultramundane journey through the afterlife or a Starfleet captain stranded on the far side of the galaxy. While Dante is lucky enough to be aided by the ancient...


May 1, 2019

Michael Eddington, Jean Valjean, and Les Misérables.

Star Trek’s heroes have always been avid readers. From The Complete Works of Shakespeare on display in Picard’s ready room to Janeway’s treasured volumes of Dante to Michael Burnham’s well-thumbed copy of Alice’s in Adventures in Wonderland, Starfleet’s...


Mar 28, 2019

Cyrano de Bergerac on Deep Space Nine.

From seventeenth-century France to mid-1980s Washington State to a twenty-fourth-century space station, Edmond Rostard’s classic play Cyrano de Bergerac has proved eminently adaptable to new settings. Its timeless theme of unrequited love has resonated with fresh audiences with...