Syllabus for POS 230: Superheroes and American Political Culture

Below is the course description, list of required texts, and course plan section for my POS 230 syllabus. Any and all feedback on the syllabus would be great, as I am still working and developing this syllabus…and will hopefully turn this into a more permanent intro to cultural studies type class.

POS 230: Superheroes and American Political Culture

Course Description:

Umberto Eco, the famous Italian philosopher, once referred to superheroes as the quintessential American myth. To Eco, superheroes represented American liberalism—from their rabid individualism, commitment to the protestant work ethic, moral certainty and grandeurs of greatness. In this course we will complicate Eco’s claim and explore superhero narratives and stories in order to understand what they tell us about American politics and culture. We will focus our attention on graphic novels, movies and TV series.

From the darkened movie theater to the covers of graphic novels, to videogames, cartoons, lunchboxes, and almost every form of media and merchandise imaginable, superheroes are a ubiquitous presence in popular culture. Yet, while most know what it means to find someone’s “kryptonite” or to stay away when someone is “hulking out”, the political and philosophic content that is so intrinsic to the genre is often ignored. Much like other forms of movies, television, and literature superhero narratives—whether in comic books or in film—provide insight into aspects of cultural values and politics. This course will centralize superhero narratives and explore the complex political and cultural values that be found within the genre. Using the techniques and skills developed by Cultural Studies and American Studies, this class will provide a means for students to plumb the depth of movies, graphic novels, and other forms of media for political meaning.

Required Books:

All required books can be ordered on Amazon and other online book services (such as Powells.com or Amazon.com, which can be much cheaper) and might also be available at the local comic book store CAB comics (1471 S Milton). Please make sure you have the books by the time they are being used in the course. In addition the books can be purchased digitally from multiple sources (I recommend Comixology) and read using a CBZ (or equivalent comic app reader). 

Graphic Novels:

• Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, and Kilian Plunkett, Superman: Red Son (2014)
• Ta-Nahisi Coates, Black Panther vol. 1
• Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith 3, amal Igle, Khary Randolph, Black Vol. 1, Black Mask Studios (2017)
• Kelley Sue Deconnick and Valentino De Landro, Bitch Planet Vol. 1
• Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, We3
• Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening

Class Schedule

Part 1: Introduction to Cultural Studies and Superheroes 

Week 1:

Tuesday, January 16: Intro to the class

Reading:

• Read the syllabus

Thursday, January 18: Introduction to Superheroes

Reading:

• “Our Fascination with Superheroes” in Our Superheroes, Ourselves (eds.) Robin Rosenberg
• Matthew Costello and Kent Worcester “The Politics of the Superhero” in PS: Political Science & Society, January 2014

 Week 2:

Tuesday, January 23^rd: How to do Cultural Studies and Criticism

Reading:

• Iam Bogost, How to Talk about Videogames, Intro: “Nobody asked for a toaster critic: Doing Videogame Criticism.”
• Ian Bogost, How to Talk about Videogames, ch 3 “The Blue Shell Is Everything That’s Wrong with America”

Thursday, January 25^th: Doing Cultural Criticism, examples

Reading:

• Stuart Hall “Coding and Decoding
• Annika Hagley and Michael Harrison “Fighting the Battles we Never Could: The Avengers and Post-September 11 American Political Identity” in PS: Political Science and Politics January 2014

Film

• Avengers (2012)

Week 3: What is a superhero?

Tuesday January 30^th: The early history of comics

Readings:

• Bradford W. Wright Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America, ch. 1 “Superheroes for the Common Man: The Birth of the Comic Book Industry, 1933-1941”

Thursday February 1^st: Superman

Reading

• Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman and first official superhero comic) found at
  http://www.reading-room.net/Action1/Action1Cover.html
• Ben Sanders Do the Gods Wear Capes?: Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes 1 “Superman: Truth, Justice, and all that stuff?”

Film:

• Superman (1978)

Week 4:

Tuesday February 6^th: Complicating the Superhero

Readings:

• Ian Gordon, Superman: The persistence of an American Icon,, ch. 2 “Ideology and Morality”

Thursday February 8^th: Superman as nationalist hero?

Graphic Novel:

• Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, and Kilian Plunkett, Superman: Red Son (2014)

Reading:

• Fredric Wertham, “the Superman conceit” from The Superhero Reader by Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer, and Kent Worcester (eds)

 

Part 2: The Superhero, Political Nationalism, Imperialism, and War

Week 5: Superhero as nationalist icon

Tuesday, February 13^th:

Readings:

• Jason Dittmer, Captain America and the Nationalist Superheroes, ch 1 “Introducing Nationalist Superheroes”

Thursday, February 15^th:                    FIRST FILM CRITICISM DUE

Film:

• Captain America: The First Avenger (2014)

Reading:

• Matthew Costello , Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books & The Unmasking of Cold War America, ch. 2 “The Enemy Without: 1961-1968”

Week 6:

Tuesday, February 20^th: Gender and American Nationalism

Reading:

• Ben Sanders Do the Gods Wear Capes?: Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes 2 “Wonder Woman: Bondage and Liberation”

Thursday, February 22^nd:

Film:

• Wonder Woman (2017)

Reading:

• the race card, “The Success of Wonder Woman Proves Liberals are OK with Imperialism as long as its led by a (white) woman” found at: http://afropunk.com/2017/06/the-success-of-wonder-woman-proves-liberals-are-ok-with-imperialism-as-long-as-its-led-by-a-white-woman/
• Tatiana Siegel, “The Complex Gender Politics of the ‘Wonder Woman’ movie” found at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/complex-gender-politics-wonder-woman-movie-1008259

Week 7:

Tuesday, February 27^th: Imperialist Superheroes

Reading:

• Chris Gavaler, “The Imperial Superhero” from PS: Political Science 47, Issue 1 (2014)

Thursday February 29^th: Military Industrial Complex and Iron Man

Film:

• Iron Man 3 (2013)

Readings:

• Scott Jeffery, “The military-Industrial Body” from The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics (2016)

Week 8:

Tuesday, March 6^th: Terrorism and the Superhero narrative

Readings:

• Jerrod S. MacFarlane, “Desperate Times and Desperate Measures: False-Representation and distortion of Terrorism in Post-9/11 Superhero Films” from Critical Studies on Terrorism 7, issue 3 (2014)

Thursday: March 8^th: The Animal-industrial Complex

Graphic Novel:

• Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, We3

Readings:

• Allison Dushane “We3 and the Violence of Sentimentality” from Superheroes and Critical Animal Studies: The Heroic Beasts of Total Liberation
  

Week 9: Gender and Horrorism and the Trauma of War

Reading:

• François Debrix, “Horror beyond death: Geopolitics and the Pulverization of the human”, New Formations: A journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, vol 89-90 (2017)

Thursday, April 19^th: War, Trauma, and Agency

Graphic Novel:

• Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening

Readings:

• Alex Abad-Santos “The Dazzling New Comic Monstress explores why we fear powerful women” found https://www.vox.com/2015/10/15/9539735/monstress-comic-book-review
• Min Hyoung Song, “Monsters Come Home: On Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s “Monstress” found https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/monsters-come-home-marjorie-liu-sana-takedas-monstress/#!

Week 10: SPRING BREAK

Part 3: Superheroes, Race, and Agency

Week 11:

Tuesday March 27^th: The Black Superhero

Reading:

• Adilfu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes 1 “Color them Black”

Thursday March 29^th:                                    SECOND FILM CRITICISM DUE

Graphic Novel:

• Ta-Nehisi Coats, Black Panther: A Nation Under our Feet

Readings:

• Ta-Nehisi Coats, “Building the World of Wakanda” found at https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/04/the-world-of-wakanda/479466/
• Ta-Nehisi Coats, “Superhero Comics are Largely a Response to Trauma” found at https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/01/on-comic-books-and-feminism/513023/
• Ta-Nehisi Coats, “The Feminist of Wakanda” found at https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/01/on-comic-books-and-feminism/513023/
• Ta-Nehisi Coats, “Wakanda and the Black Aesthetic” found at https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/06/wakanda-and-the-black-aesthetic/489290/

Week 12

Tuesday, April 3^rd: Race

Readings:

• Adilifu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes, ch. 2 “The Birth of Cool”

Thursday, April 5^th: A bullet proof black man

Graphic Novel:

• Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith 3, amal Igle, Khary Randolph, Black Vol. 1, Black Mask Studios (2017)

Reading:

• Kenneth Ghee “Will the ‘Real’ Black Superhero please stand up?!”: A critical Analysis of the mythological and cultural significance of black superheroes” in Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation (eds) Sheena Howard and Ronald Jackson III

 

Part 4: Superheroes, Gender, and Resistance 

Week 13

Tuesday, April 10^th: Gender Violence and Women’s Agency

Readings:

• Carolyn Cocca, Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation, introduction “Representation Matters”

Thursday, April 12^th:                                      THIRD FILM CRITICISM DUE

Film

• Jessica Jones (2016) first three episodes

Reading:

• Stephanie Yang, “Marvel Show ‘Jessica Jones’ Names a Most Evil Villian: Abuse” found at https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/marvel-show-jessica-jones-names-most-evil-villain-abuse
• Natalie Zutter “What rape apologists need to learn from Jessica Jones” found at https://www.tor.com/2015/12/01/jessica-jones-kilgrave-consent-rape-culture/
  

Week 14:

Tuesday April 17^th: Feminism and Superheroes

Reading:

• Neal Curtis and Valentino Cardo, “Superheroes and thirdwave feminism” from Feminist Media Studies

Thursday April 19^th: Gender, Prison and Dystopia

Graphic Novel:

• Kelley Sue Deconnick and Valentino De Landro, Bitch Planet Vol. 1

Reading:

• Ellen Kirkpatrick “you need to learn to see yourself in your fathers’ eyes’: Feminism, Representation and the Dystopian Space of Bitch Planet” from Feminist Review 116, No. 1 (2017)

Part 5: Class, Inequality, and Migration

Week 15

Tuesday April 24^th: Class, capitalism, and Inequality

Readings:

• Marc DiPaoli, War, Politics, and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and film, 1“Batman as Terrorist, Technocrat, and Feudal Lord”

Thursday April 26^th:                                       FOURTH FILM CRITICISM DUE

Film:

• Batman: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Readings:

• Catherine Shoard, “Dark Knight Rises: Fancy a capitalist caped crusader as your superhero? Found at https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/17/dark-knight-rises-capitalist-superhero
• Gavin Mueller, “’The Dark Knight’ is no Capitalist….” Found at https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/07/the-dark-knight-is-no-capitalist

Week 16:
Tuesday May 1^st: Catch-up Day

• NO ADDITIONAL READINGS

Thursday May 3^rd:

Film: Logan

Reading:

• Jack Herard, “Mutant Registration: The Politics of the X-men” found at https://www.theodysseyonline.com/mutant-registration-the-politics-of-men
• Kayleigh Donaldson, “Logan is the most Political X-men Movie Yet” found at https://screenrant.com/logan-movie-mexico-border-political/