Full Description
Superheroes and Critical Animal Studies explores and puts into dialogue two growing field of studies, comic studies and critical animal studies. The book's aim is to create a form of praxis that people can use to actualize many of the values superheroes strive to protect. To this end, contributor chapters are divided into sections on the foundation of superhero representation and how to teach it, criticisms of particular superheroes and how they fall short of truly protecting the planet, and interpretations of specific characters that can be read to produce a positive orientation to the nonhuman world and craft strategies to promote liberation in the real world. Altogether, the book produces a form of scholarship on the media that is both intersectional in scope and tailored to have an impact on the reader beyond theorizing superheroes for theorization's sake.
Contents
Foreword, Vas Stanescu
Introduction, JL Schatz and Sean Parson
Part I
1. Critical Animal Studies and Comics in the Classroom: Liberation and Everyday Superheroes, John Lupinacci
2. Ecological Pessimism and The Puma Blues, Kent Worcester
3. 'We Are All Scream!' Woodgod and the 'Animal Superhero,' José Alaniz
4. Making Superheroes of Children: The (Mis)Use of Nonhumans in Inspiring Childhood Development, JL Schatz
Part II
5. Dilemmas of Animal Rights in the Animal Man Comic Book Series, Márcio dos Santos Rodrigues and Matheus da Cruz e Zica
6. We3 and the Violence of Sentimentality, Allison Dushane
7. White God: Rethinking Human and Nonhuman Subjectivities through Underdog-Superhero Narratives and Ahuman Theory, Chantelle Gray van Heerden
Part III
8 Bruteness: Gender, Race, and Animality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jeffrey Pannekoek and Karin Anderson
9. Cyborgs, Companion Species, and the General Will: The Deeply Constitutive Relationship Between Bats and Batman, Matt Evans
10. Ain't No Thing Like Me, Except Me: Rocket Raccoon, Cyborg Queerness, and Toxic-Masculinity, Sean Parson
