A poster of Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)

“Rock – Paper – Scissors – Lizard – Spock” – those of us who watch the popular Big Bang Theory are very familiar with this game. It’s a game created by Sheldon Cooper alluding to the infamous character Mr Spock from the Star Trek series.

Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj merely depict a fan base, which has kept the Star Trek franchise alive.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past 50 years, Star Trek is an American science fiction franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The first series, now referred to as The Original Series, debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons.

Star Trek is considered a cult phenomenon and it spawned a wide range of spin-offs, besides figurines, games, novels and comics.

This year marks 50 years from the release of Star Trek: The Original Series and it is chock-full of various events – from exhibitions, concerts to conventions – to celebrate the saga. 2016 is indeed dedicated to all the Trekkies or Trekkers – as the fans are called – out there.

Former US Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley during her introductory speech at a previous conference organised by SciFi Malta.

The symposium harmoniously brings together science and art through a TV series

On a local level, the occasion will be commemorated in a rather different way. SciFi Malta, an association set up by Victor Grech, Mariella Scerri and David Zammit, are organising a Star Trek Symposium.

The team assert that Scifi Malta’s main aim is “to organise and support activities related to Science Fiction with the scope of promoting education, culture and the arts at both local and international levels”.

It is the second symposium they are organising with the same theme. The first one was a world-first event as no other symposium on Star Trek was ever held and speakers included former US Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, Victor Grech from the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, as well as Clare Vassallo from the Faculty of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies, at the University of Malta.

“SciFi Malta serves as a platform for academics from across many disciplines to meet and explore the intersection of humanities and the sciences,” they say.

The team also published a book entitled Star Trek: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Theory and Practice, which is made up of the papers presented at the first symposium. Similarly, the proceedings of this year’s symposium will be published in a book, which will be the third book in a series of texts related to Star Trek and science fiction by SciFi Malta.

This year’s symposium will offer two full days of Star Trek presentations and animated discussions by academics from different fields and who are Trekkies at heart.

From top: Mariella Scerri, Victor Grech, David Zammit are the faces behind SciFi Malta – a platform for academics from across disciplines to meet and explore the intersection of humanities and the sciences.

“It differs from the other conferences in that it harmoniously brings together science and art througha television series which has been kept alive throughout these 50 years.”

The speakers will include Abercrombie-Winstanley once again and author of Thomistic Principles and Bioethics, American philosopher Jason Eberl. There will also be a round table discussion at the end of each day.

The symposium will not be limited to discussions, however. Infused with art, 15 paintings by Victor Grech himself will be exhibited and available for purchase. These works of art are oil on canvas with a painting knife, Star Trek-related and fund-raisers for SciFi Malta.

The symposium should provide fans with the perfect platform to interact with fellow Trekkies and prove to everyone that watching reruns for hours on end can actually be pinned down to doing research.

More information can be found on www.startreksymposium.com or on their Facebook page Star Trek Symposium. The symposium will take place on June 15 and16. Registration is still open.