Superhero Bodies

Identity, Materiality, Transformation

Sarah Richardson editor Wendy Haslem editor Elizabeth MacFarlane editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:20th Nov '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Superhero Bodies cover

Throughout the history of the genre, the superhero has been characterised primarily by physical transformation and physical difference. Superhero Bodies: Identity, Materiality, Transformation explores the transformation of the superhero body across multiple media forms including comics, film, television, literature and the graphic novel. How does the body of the hero offer new ways to imagine identities? How does it represent or subvert cultural ideals? How are ideologies of race, gender and disability signified or destabilised in the physicality of the superhero? How are superhero bodies drawn, written and filmed across diverse forms of media and across histories?

This volume collects essays that attend to the physicality of superheroes: the transformative bodies of superheroes, the superhero’s position in urban and natural spaces, the dialectic between the superhero’s physical and metaphysical self, and the superhero body’s relationship with violence. This will be the first collection of scholarly research specifically dedicated to investigating the diversity of superhero bodies, their emergence, their powers, their secrets, their histories and their transformations.

"In many ways, this book builds on the best work in the field currently, extending the argument and debate around the topics of identity and representation, and provides a refreshing reminder of one of the important elements of the superhero genre, the superhero body." --John McGuire, Western Sydney University, Australia

ISBN: 9781138389892

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 439g

194 pages