Research in Horror Studies Star Trek Discovery and the Female Gothic

In Star Trek Discovery and the Female Gothic: Tell Fear No, Carey Millsap-Spears examines the Star Trek series through the lens of the Female Gothic, illustrating how each season includes traditional elements of the narrative formula, including a mystery, a gothic villain and heroine, an escape narrative, and the explained supernatural. While many scholars agree the Gothic mode has been a precursor to science fiction since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Carey Millsap-Spears argues in this book that the made for streaming series Star Trek Discovery draws on an even older gothic formula, namely the Female Gothic of Ann Radcliffe’s romance novels, including The Romance of the Forest and The Mysteries of Udolpho. Millsap-Spears reads the streaming series through the lens of the Female Gothic, illustrating that each season contains the formulaic elements of a mystery, a gothic villain and heroine, an escape narrative, and the explained supernatural. In doing so, the author expands Star Trek scholarship and sheds new light on the intertextual connections between gothic literature and contemporary science fiction.