Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization

Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization PDF Author: Michael Arthur Soares
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666950319
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization: Up, Up and ...Abroad examines superhero narratives through the lens of American rhetoric and globalization. Michael Arthur Soares illustrates how deeply intertwined superhero narratives are with American political culture by analyzing, on the one hand, the rhetoric of American exceptionalism and the representation of American presidents in superhero narratives and, on the other, the prevalence of superhero rhetoric in speeches by American politicians. Turning toward the global mobility of the superhero genre, Soares then offers further insight into the ways in which cultural contexts inform transformations of superheroes and their narratives around the world and how American filmmakers have adjusted their narratives to guarantee their global reach and ability to place films in the global marketplace. Finally, the author considers real-life examples of licensed superhero iconography embodied by individuals around the world who seek to make change in their communities. Ultimately, the chapters examine the journey of superhero rhetoric and how it reaches out to global audiences, across cultural borders and back again.

Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization

Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization PDF Author: Michael Arthur Soares
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666950319
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
Superhero Rhetoric from Exceptionalism to Globalization: Up, Up and ...Abroad examines superhero narratives through the lens of American rhetoric and globalization. Michael Arthur Soares illustrates how deeply intertwined superhero narratives are with American political culture by analyzing, on the one hand, the rhetoric of American exceptionalism and the representation of American presidents in superhero narratives and, on the other, the prevalence of superhero rhetoric in speeches by American politicians. Turning toward the global mobility of the superhero genre, Soares then offers further insight into the ways in which cultural contexts inform transformations of superheroes and their narratives around the world and how American filmmakers have adjusted their narratives to guarantee their global reach and ability to place films in the global marketplace. Finally, the author considers real-life examples of licensed superhero iconography embodied by individuals around the world who seek to make change in their communities. Ultimately, the chapters examine the journey of superhero rhetoric and how it reaches out to global audiences, across cultural borders and back again.

The Superhero Multiverse

The Superhero Multiverse PDF Author: Lorna Piatti-Farnell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793624607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
The Superhero Multiverse focuses on the evolving meanings of the superhero icon in 21st-century film and popular media, with an emphasis on re-adapting, re-imagining, and re-making. With its focus on multimedia and transmedia transformations, The Superhero Multiverse pivots on two important points: firstly, it reflects on the core concerns of the superhero narrative—including the relationship between ‘superhero comics’ and ‘superhero films’, the comics roots of superhero media, matters of canon and hybridity, and issues of recycling and stereotyping in superhero films and media texts. Secondly, it considers how these intersecting textual and cultural preoccupations are intrinsic to the process of remaking and re-adapting superheroes, and brings attention to multiple ways of materializing these iconic figures in our contemporary context.

Veiled Superheroes

Veiled Superheroes PDF Author: Sophia Rose Arjana
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498536530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
This groundbreaking study examines Muslim female superheroes within a matrix of Islamic theology, feminism, and contemporary political discourse. Through a close reading of texts including Ms. Marvel, Qahera, and The 99, Sophia Rose Arjana argues that these powerful and iconic characters reflect independence and agency, reflecting the diverse lives of Muslim girls and women in the world today.

Superheroes and Masculinity

Superheroes and Masculinity PDF Author: Sean Parson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498591507
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Superheroes and Masculinity: Unmasking the Gender Performance of Heroism explores how heteropatriarchal representations of gender are portrayed within superhero comics, film, and television. The contributors examine how hegemonic masculinity has been continually perpetuated and reinforced within the superhero genre and unpack concise critiques of specific superhero representations, the industry, and the fan base at large. However, Superheroes and Masculinity also argues that possibilities of resistance and change are embedded within these problematic portrayals. To this end, several chapters explore alternative portrayals of queerness within superhero representations and read the hegemonic masculinity of various characters against the grain to produce queer possibilities. Ultimately, this collection argues that the quest to unmask how gender operates within superheroes is a crucial one.

Curious about George

Curious about George PDF Author: Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496837371
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In 1940, Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey built two bikes, packed what they could, and fled wartime Paris. Among the possessions they escaped with was a manuscript that would later become one of the most celebrated books in children’s literature—Curious George. Since his debut in 1941, the mischievous icon has only grown in popularity. After being captured in Africa by the Man in the Yellow Hat and taken to live in the big city’s zoo, Curious George became a symbol of curiosity, adventure, and exploration. In Curious about George: Curious George, Cultural Icons, Colonialism, and US Exceptionalism, author Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre argues that the beloved character also performs within a narrative of racism, colonialism, and heroism. Using theories of colonial and rhetorical studies to explain why cultural icons like Curious George are able to avoid criticism, Schwartz-DuPre investigates the ways these characters operate as capacious figures, embodying and circulating the narratives that construct them, and effectively argues that discourses about George provide a rich training ground for children to learn US citizenship and become innocent supporters of colonial American exceptionalism. By drawing on postcolonial theory, children’s criticisms, science and technology studies, and nostalgia, Schwartz-DuPre’s critical reading explains the dismissal of the monkey’s 1941 abduction from Africa and enslavement in the US, described in the first book, by illuminating two powerful roles he currently holds: essential STEM ambassador at a time when science and technology is central to global competitiveness and as a World War II refugee who offers a “deficient” version of the Holocaust while performing model US immigrant. Curious George’s twin heroic roles highlight racist science and an Americanized Holocaust narrative. By situating George as a representation of enslaved Africans and Holocaust refugees, Curious about George illuminates the danger of contemporary zero-sum identity politics, the colonization of marginalized identities, and racist knowledge production. Importantly, it demonstrates the ways in which popular culture can be harnessed both to promote colonial benevolence and to present possibilities for resistance.

The Nazi Card

The Nazi Card PDF Author: Brian Johnson
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498532918
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
The Cold War began almost immediately after the end of World War II and the defeat of the Nazis in Europe. As images of the Nazis’ atrocities became part of American culture’s common store, the evil of their old enemy, beyond the Nazis as a wartime opponent, became increasingly important. As America tried to describe the danger represented by the spread of Communism, it fell back on descriptions of Nazism to make the threat plain through comparison. At the heart of the tensions of that era lay the inconsistency of using one kind of evil to describe another. The book addresses this tension in regards to McCarthyism, campaigns to educate the public about Communism, attempts to raise support for wars in Asia, and the rhetoric of civil rights. Each of these political arenas is examined through their use of Nazi analogies in popular, political, and literary culture. The Nazi Card is an invaluable look at the way comparisons to Nazis are used in American culture, the history of those comparisons, and the repercussions of establishing a political definition of evil.

Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction

Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction PDF Author: Judith Grant
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 179363064X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
In a world in which political opportunity and liberation seem far away, the genre of science fiction grows in cultural importance and popularity. The contributors to this collection are political and social theorists from a range of disciplines who use science fiction as inspiration for new theories and examples of speculative politics. In dystopian governments, they find locations and forms of resistance. Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction explores a range of political and social theoretical concerns for the twenty-first century. Contributors analyze themes of post-humanism, resistance, agency, political community making, and ethics and politics during the Anthropocene.

Race and Hegemonic Struggle in the United States

Race and Hegemonic Struggle in the United States PDF Author: Michael G. Lacy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611477107
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Race and Hegemonic Struggle in the United States: Pop Culture, Politics, and Protest is a collection of essays that draws on concepts developed by Antonio Gramsci to examine the imagining of race in popular culture productions, political discourses, and resistance rhetoric. The chapters in this volume call for renewed attention to Gramscian political thought to examine, understand, interpret and explain the persistent contradictions, ambivalence, and paradoxes in racial representations and material realities.This book’s contributors rely on Gramsci’s ideas to explore how popular, political, and resistant discourses reproduce or transform our understandings of race and racism, social inequalities, and power relationships in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Together the chapters confront forms of collective and cultural amnesia about race and racism suggested in the phrases “postrace,” “postracial,” and “postracism," while exposing the historical, institutional, social, and political forces and constraints that make antiracism, atonement, and egalitarian change so difficult to achieve.

What is a Superhero?

What is a Superhero? PDF Author: Robin S. Rosenberg PhD
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019933952X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
It's easy to name a superhero--Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine--but it's not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn't have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn't have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and why do we need them? In What is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore this question from a variety of viewpoints, bringing together contributions from nineteen comic book experts--including both scholars in such fields as cultural studies, art, and psychology as well as leading comic book writers and editors. What emerges is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most popular of pop-culture figures. Writer Jeph Loeb, for instance, sees the desire to make the world a better place as the driving force of the superhero. Jennifer K. Stuller argues that the female superhero inspires women to stand up, be strong, support others, and most important, to believe in themselves. More darkly, A. David Lewis sees the indestructible superhero as the ultimate embodiment of the American "denial of death," while writer Danny Fingeroth sees superheroes as embodying the best aspects of humankind, acting with a nobility of purpose that inspires us. Interestingly, Fingeroth also expands the definition of superhero so that it would include characters like John McClane of the Die Hard movies: "Once they dodge ridiculous quantities of machine gun bullets they're superheroes, cape or no cape." From summer blockbusters to best-selling graphic novels, the superhero is an integral part of our culture. What is a Superhero? not only illuminates this pop-culture figure, but also sheds much light on the fantasies and beliefs of the American people.

Video Games and American Culture

Video Games and American Culture PDF Author: Aaron A. Toscano
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793601313
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Digital media are immersive technologies reflecting behaviors, attitudes, and values. The engrossing, entertaining virtual worlds video games provide are important sites for 21st century research. This book moves beyond assertions that video games cause violence by analyzing the culture that produces such material. While some popular media reinforce the idea that video games lead to violence, this book uses a cultural studies lens to reveal a more complex situation. Video games do not lead to violence, sexism, and chauvinism. Rather, Toscano argues, a violent, sexist, chauvinistic culture reproduces texts that reflect these values. Although video games have a worldwide audience, this book focuses on American culture and how this multi-billion dollar industry entertains us in our leisure time (and sometimes at work), bringing us into virtual environments where we have fun learning, fighting, discovering, and acquiring bragging rights. When politicians and moral crusaders push agendas that claim video games cause a range of social ills from obesity to mass shooting, these perspectives fail to recognize that video games reproduce hegemonic American values. This book, in contrast, focuses on what these highly entertaining cultural products tell us about who we are.