Heroines of Comic Books and Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture - Softcover

Maja Bajac-Carter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144227560X ISBN 13: 9781442275607

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016

Synopsis

Despite the growing importance of heroines across literary culture—and sales figures that demonstrate both young adult and adult females are reading about heroines in droves, particularly in graphic novels, comic books, and YA literature—few scholarly collections have examined the complex relationships between the representations of heroines and the changing societal roles for both women and men.

In Heroines of Comic Books and Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture, editors Maja Bajac-Carter, Norma Jones, and Bob Batchelor have selected essays by award-winning contributors that offer a variety of perspectives on the representations of heroines in today’s society. Focused on printed media, this collection looks at heroic women depicted in literature, graphic novels, manga, and comic books. Addressing heroines from such sources as the Marvel and DC comic universes, manga, and the Twilight novels, contributors go beyond the account of women as mothers, wives, warriors, goddesses, and damsels in distress.

These engaging and important essays situate heroines within culture, revealing them as tough and self-sufficient females who often break the bounds of gender expectations in places readers may not expect. Analyzing how women are and have been represented in print, this companion volume to Heroines of Film and Television will appeal to scholars of literature, rhetoric, and media as well as to broader audiences that are interested in portrayals of women in popular culture.

About this title

About the Authors

Bob Batchelor is a cultural historian and noted expert on contemporary American culture, history, and biography. His books include Stan Lee: A Life; Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Young Reader’s Edition; and Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties. He is a three-time winner of the IPA Book Award. Batchelor’s work has appeared in or been featured by the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times, Today.com, The Guardian, PopMatters, and Time. Batchelor is a host on the New Books Network podcast and creator and host of the podcast John Updike: American Writer, American Life. He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, BBC, PBS, and NPR.

Joseph J. Darowski, PhD, is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. He is the editor of The Ages of Superheroes essay series, the author of X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor: Race and Gender in the Comics, and coauthor of Frasier: A Cultural History and Cheers: A Cultural History.

T. Keith Edmunds has degrees in Psychology, Rural Development, Rural Studies, and Business. After being awarded a PhD from University of Guelph and an MBA. from Laurentian University, both in Canada, he found himself as an assistant professor at Brandon University, also in Canada.

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he teaches courses on international horror film. He also serves on the editorial board of New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film (Intellect), Director of the horror cinema research group "Grite," and Director of the Spanish horror studies series "Terror: Estudios Críticos" (Universidad de Cádiz).

Edition details

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 144227560X
• ISBN 13: 9781442275607
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 274