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Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes
Superhero meaning making is a site of struggle. Superheroes (are thought to) trouble borders and normative ways of seeing and being in the world. Superhero narratives (are thought to) represent, and thereby inspire, alternative visions of the real world. The superhero genre is (thought to be) a repository for radical or progressive ideas. In the superhero world and beyond, much is made of the genre's utopian and dystopian landscapes, queer identity-play, and transforming bodies, but might it not be the case that the genre's overblown normative framing, or representation, serves to muzzle, rather than express, its protagonists' radical promise? Why, when set against otherwise unbounded, and o...
Virtual Identities and Digital Culture
Virtual Identities and Digital Culture investigates how our online identities and cultures are embedded within the digital practices of our lives, exploring how we form community, how we play, and how we re-imagine traditional media in a digital world. The collection explores a wide range of digital topics – from dating apps, microcelebrity, and hackers to auditory experiences, Netflix algorithms, and live theatre online – and builds on existing work in digital culture and identity by bringing new voices, contemporary examples, and highlighting platforms that are emerging in the field. The book speaks to the modern reality of how our digital lives have been forever altered by our transnational experiences – one of those key experiences is the pandemic, but so too is systemic inequality, questions of digital privacy, and the role of joy in our online lives. A vital contribution at a time of significant social and cultural flux, this book will be highly relevant to those studying digital culture within media, communication, cultural studies, digital humanities, and sociology departments.
The Claremont Run
"Although Chris Claremont did not create the X-Men nor did he revamp them into the All-New, All-Different X-Men, he took over the book soon after its revamp and lifted the mutant team to meteoric success during his unprecedented 16-year run on the comic. Even 30 years later, it is his work on the X-Men that inspires movies, television shows, and other media. A large part of his success on the book was due to the powerful women in his work and the sophisticated gender dynamics that were groundbreaking at the time and helped to change pop culture. J. Andrew Deman, with the help of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, has analyzed not only the hundreds of ...
The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture
An exclusively Canadian textbook, this collection investigates the relationships between identity, geography, and popular culture that are produced and consumed in this sprawling country. Expanding beyond the clichés of friendliness and snow, this text provides a fresh perspective on what it means to be Canadian, both nationally and transnationally. Scholars look at historical subjects like Québécois identity and Indigenous self-representation and explore issues in contemporary media, including music, film, television, comic books, video games, and social media. From Drake to the Tragically Hip, Trailer Park Boys to The Amazing Race Canada, and poutine to maple syrup, mainstream icons and...
Doppelgangers, Alter Egos and Mirror Images in Western Art, 1840-2010
The notion of a person--or even an object--having a "double" has been explored in the visual arts for ages, and in myriad ways: portraying the body and its soul, a woman gazing at her reflection in a pool, or a man overwhelmed by his own shadow. In this edited collection focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century western art, scholars analyze doppelgangers, alter egos, mirror images, double portraits and other pairings, human and otherwise, appearing in a large variety of artistic media. Artists whose works are discussed at length include Richard Dadd, Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele, Frida Kahlo, the creators of Superman, and Nicola Costantino, among many others.
Critical Femininities
What would change about our existing world if we re-imagined and re-valued femininity? Critical Femininities presents a multidimensional framework for re-thinking femininity. Moving beyond seeing femininity as a patriarchal tool, this book considers the social, historical, and ideological forces that shape present-day norms surrounding femininity, particularly those that contribute to femmephobia: the systematic devaluation and regulation of all that is deemed feminine. Each chapter offers a unique application of the Critical Femininities framework to disparate areas of inquiry, ranging from breastfeeding stigma to Incel ideology, and attempts to answer pressing questions concerning the plac...
Super-Girls of the Future
Super-Girls of the Future: Girlhood and Agency in Contemporary Superhero Comics investigates girl superheroes published by DC and Marvel Comics in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, asking who the new-and-improved super-girls are and what potentials they hold for imagining girls as agents of change, in the genre as well as its socio-cultural context. As super-girls have grown increasingly numerous and diverse since the turn of the millennium, they provide an opportunity for reconsidering representations of gender and power in the superhero genre. This book offers the term agentic embodiment as an analytical tool for critiquing the body politics of superhero comics, particularly concerning youth, femininity, whiteness, and violence. Grounded in comics studies and informed by feminist cultural studies, the book contributes a critical and hopeful perspective on the diversification of a genre often written off as irredeemably conservative and patriarchal. Super-Girls of the Future is a key title for students and scholars of comics studies, visual culture, US popular culture, and feminist criticism.
Transforming Bodies
Transforming Bodies: Gendered Stories of Embodied Change provides unique and original research on gendered bodies. It explores the ways that bodies transform and change, and how these transformations relate to the intersections of gender, race, body shape, names, age, dis/ability, activism, performance, and beyond. Combining personal narratives, sociological theories, and artistic representations, this book dives into questions on transformation and change, such as: “How do we understand our bodies as transformative places? What does it mean to exist in a body that is consistently questioned? Are our embodiments always in some state(s) of change?” The book contains original stories on embodied transformation and includes creative engagement by using commissioned art to represent various forms of transformation and change. Each chapter has a comprehensive list of key words and questions for reflection and discussion. Transforming Bodies: Gendered Stories of Embodied Change is an accessible book that will be engaging for both students and scholars, as well as those outside of academia with an interest in body politics, gender, race, disability, and activism.
Women and Popular Culture in Canada
The first book of its kind, this volume explores women and non-binary people in popular culture in Canada, with a focus on intersectional analysis of settler colonialism, race, white privilege, ability, and queer representations and experiences in diverse media. The chapters include discussions of film, television, videogames, music, and performance, as well as political events, journalism, social media, fandom, and activism. Throughout this collection, readers are encouraged to think carefully about the role women play in the cultural landscape in Canada as active viewers, creators, and participants. Covering a wide range of topics from historical perspectives to recent events, media, and t...
Robin and the Making of American Adolescence
Holy adolescence, Batman! Robin and the Making of American Adolescence offers the first character history and analysis of the most famous superhero sidekick, Robin. Debuting just a few months after Batman himself, Robin has been an integral part of the Dark Knight’s history—and debuting just a few months prior to the word “teenager” first appearing in print, Robin has from the outset both reflected and reinforced particular images of American adolescence. Closely reading several characters who have “played” Robin over the past eighty years, Robin and the Making of American Adolescence reveals the Boy (and sometimes Girl!) Wonder as a complex figure through whom mainstream culture has addressed anxieties about adolescents in relation to sexuality, gender, and race. This book partners up comics studies and adolescent studies as a new Dynamic Duo, following Robin as he swings alongside the ever-changing American teenager and finally shining the Bat-signal on the latter half of “Batman and—.”
