Syllabus: Superhero Media (Fall 2020)

For figures born more than half a century ago in the pages of American comic books, superheroes like Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, or Captain America exhibit a remarkable omnipresence on the big and small screens of our contemporary media environment. Film adaptations of titles by DC Comics and Marvel Comics (the USA’s two biggest publishers of superhero comics) currently constitute one of the most popular genres in American blockbuster cinema, which has churned out close to 40 big-budget movies based on iconic properties during the last decade alone — among them high-grossing productions like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight-trilogy for Warner Bros, Disney’s string of movies based on Marvel characters (e.g. The Avengers, Iron Man 3, or Guardians of the Galaxy), or Sony’s series of Spider-Man films. In recent years, American television has latched onto the commercial success of these productions and released a string of drama series based on superhero comic books, from The CW’s Arrow (since 2012) and The Flash (since 2014), to ABC’s Marvel’s Agent of S.H.I.E.LD. (since 2013) and Marvel’s Agent Carter (2014), to Fox’s Gotham (since 2014) and Netflix’s Marvel’s Daredevil (2015). This seminar engages with the surprising longevity of comic book superheroes and their filmic and televisual incarnations in the early 21st century, and discusses recent examples from both American film and television as prominent examples of popular serial storytelling in the digital era. In doing so, the seminar addresses aspects ranging from theories of mass culture and popular seriality, questions about the the historical origins and politics of superhero narratives to the economics of contemporary Hollywood production, the impact of digitization on contemporary film and television, and the practices of fan cultures.

2013

Ever since the first appearances of Superman and Batman in comic books of the late 1930s, superheroes have been a staple of the popular culture landscape. Though initially created for younger audiences, superhero characters have evolved over the years, becoming complex figures that appeal to more sophisticated readers. In Enter the Superheroes: American Values, Culture, and the Canon of Superhero Literature, Alex S. Romagnoli and Gian S. Pagnucci argue that superheroes merit serious study, both within the academy and beyond. Structured around key themes within superhero literature, the book delves into the features that make superhero stories a unique genre. The book also draws upon examples in comics and other diverse media to illustrate the socio-historical importance of superheroes, from the interplay of fans and creators to unique narrative elements that are brought to their richest fulfillment within the world of superheroes. Additionally, the authors provide a list of notewort...

Journal of Student Research

A wide variety of studies has identified a significant correlation between the income of a film and its genre. Unveiling that with newer genres and new audiences, certain movies experience more success than others. Here the researcher institutes a content analysis in which 12 live-action ‘superhero’ films are viewed and evaluated based on a sophisticated code. The films are viewed multiple times and other ‘outside’ codes are also recorded by the researcher. The research results in a found correlation between economic success and the superhero genre is identified along with a greater understanding of the impact that the films have on audiences. Not only is the impact revealed, but also some methods are evaluated along with their effectiveness on the amount of income generated.

2014

Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres (pp. 165-184)., 2013

Juniata Voices, 2012

Scholars and students, argues historian Julian Chambliss, can use superhero comics and their related media to investigate how culture and power changed in American society. Focusing on Iron Man and Superman, Chambliss explores issues of nationalism and identity since the 1930s.

2004

2020

In this essay, I have tried to read the concept of the superhero through Ranjan Ghosh’s idea of “intra-active transculturality” inside a “more than global world” which accentuates on the transnational, translingual and transcultural circulation and engagement with a literary work. Philosophically, the concept of the “superhero’’ is linked to the active potentiality of Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch”; and etymologically, it is linked to the grandeur of the mythical “hero.” However, this comic-book concept has been imprisoned into an insular identity within a self-inclusive genre since the birth of Superman in 1938. Over the years the concept of the superhero has travelled across times, places and genres. It has also been culturally translated and reformulated in many unpredictable contexts. The dialogue between the superhero and its “apocryphal” usages, the essay argues, adds an excess or “more” to it, and eventually creates the possibility of a new sense or a defamiliarised understanding of the concept. However, this essay is not an attempt to dismantle this popular cultural concept, but to revive its creative energy from the clutches of a globalised culture industry. The superhero, this essay argues, does not only belong to the comic-books and movies, but is embedded in a network of intra-relations within a larger literary and philosophical culture.

2020

His research is in the field of media sociology, and digital leisure. Andersen has published Browsing the Origins of Comic Book Superheroes (2017) and submitted the article Tintin and the Adventure of Transformative and Critical Fandom (2020, co-author) for international publication.