Titans: How Superheroes Can Help Us Make Sense of a Polarized World
Ebook
Overview
These days it seems like heroes fight each other more often than they fight villains. The hero-vs-hero trope so common in comic books and in superhero movies these days can provide us with a means of thinking about the deeply polarized state of modern politics and public opinion about civic life, morality, and even God. There is a real divide in our public life that nobody seems to be able to cross. It’s easy to complain that people should be more willing to meet each other half-way, that politicians should be more willing to compromise in order to get things done, but there are plenty of important issues on which compromise really isn’t possible. We see this problem dramatized in comics like Marvel’s Civil War and Avengers vs X-Men; in DC’s Kingdom Come and The Dark Knight Returns; and in film media like Daredevil, Batman v Superman, and Captain America: Civil War. The consequences of the conflicts that arise in these stories can serve as warnings about our current political environment. They’re safe places in which we can see the logic of our political dysfunction carried to frightening (but perhaps inevitable?) conclusions.
“Superheroes seem to spend more time these days fighting each
other than battling evil. In Titans,
Boudreaux, Latta, and Nevin use this trend as an opportunity
to explore issues such as conflicts between different visions of
the good, the nature of power (and superpower), and the value of
superheroes as modern mythology. Their love for the subject matter
shines through while they flesh out the stories we all love with
fascinating insight and entertaining prose.”
—Mark D. White, author of The Virtues of Captain
America and A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics’
Civil War
“Boudreaux shows with surpassing clarity not only how
comic books make use of philosophy, but also the more important
point that precisely because it is such a powerful tool for
understanding the world, philosophy underwrites all forms of
culture, popular as well as elite. In making explicit so much of
the thought that informs the genre, he also provides a helpful
primer on a variety of major ideas and schools of thought in the
Western tradition.”
—Stephen Slimp, University of West Alabama
“Titans is a serious examination of the political,
philosophical, and theological themes in superhero films and comic
books. The superhero genre constitutes a new mythology that
revisits ancient themes which have continued salience in the
contemporary world—the existence of God, the problem of evil,
the moral obligation to disobey unjust
laws. Titans is an important study of a popular genre
that has not received sufficient scholarly attention.”
—Joseph S. Devaney, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Product Details
- Title : Titans: How Superheroes Can Help Us Make Sense of a Polarized World
- Authors:
- Boudreaux, Armond
- Latta, Corey
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2017
- ISBN: 9781532604010
Armond Boudreaux is an Assistant Professor of English at East
Georgia State College in Statesboro, GA. He is the author of
That He May Raise and Animus: Little Gods. You can
read more of his writing on superheroes and politics at
https://aclashofheroes.wordpress.com and
www.armondboudreaux.com.
Corey Latta is a writer, teacher, and public speaker. He is the
author of Functioning Fantasies, Election and Unity in
Paul's Epistle to the Romans, When the Eternal Can Be
Met, and C. S. Lewis and the Art of
Writing.