[PDF] Religion And Myth In The Marvel Cinematic Universe eBook
Religion And Myth In The Marvel Cinematic Universe Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Religion And Myth In The Marvel Cinematic Universe book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
Breaking box office records, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved an unparalleled level of success with fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. This is the first book to analyze the Marvel output as modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from world religious traditions. This book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. The films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.
Post-Christian Religion in Popular Culture: Theology through Exegesis analyzes several theological exegeses of contemporary popular culture as post-Christian scripture. It includes analyses of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Lion King, and Cloud Atlas, the television shows Lucifer and Shameless, and contemporary pop punk and alternative music. Through an application of three hermeneutical methods (re-enchantment, resourcement, and rescription), a prophetic and apocalyptic critique of modernity, and an analysis of the late-modern human condition, Andrew D. Thrasher argues how popular culture recites post-Christian religious and theological messages marked by a post-disenchantment theology constituted by the consumption of these messages shapes and informs what the contemporary world finds believable, credible, and desirable in a post-Christian context.
In Theology and the Marvel Universe, fourteen contributors examine theological themes and ideas in the comic books, television shows, and films that make up the grand narrative of the Marvel Universe. Engaging in dialogue with theological thinkers such as Willie James Jennings, Franz Rosenzweig, Søren Kierkegaard, René Girard, Kelly Brown Douglas, and many others, the chapters explore a wide variety of topics, including violence, sacrifice, colonialism, Israeli-Palestinian relations, virtue ethics, character formation, identity formation, and mythic reinvention. This book demonstrates that the stories of Thor, Daredevil, Sabra, Spider-Man, Jessica Jones, Thanos, Luke Cage, and others engage not just our imagination, but our theological imagination as well.
Translated for the first time into English, The Myth of the Superhero looks beyond the cape, the mask, and the superpowers, presenting a serious study of the genre and its place in a broader cultural context.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the most expansive and widely viewed fictional narrative in the history of cinema. In 2009, Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, including its subsidiary film production company, Marvel Studios. Since then, the MCU—the collection of multimedia Marvel Studios products that share a single fictional storyline—has grown from two feature films to thirty interconnected movies, nine streaming Disney+ series, a half dozen short films, and more than thirty print titles. By 2022, eight of the twenty-five highest grossing films of all time are MCU movies. The MCU is a deeply political universe. Intentionally or not, the MCU sends fans scores of messages about a wide range of subjects related to government, public policy, and society. Some are overt, like the contentious debate about government and accountability at the heart of Captain America: Civil War. More often, however, the politics of the MCU are subtle, like the changing role of women from supporting characters (like Black Widow in Iron Man 2) to leading heroes (like Black Widow in Black Widow). The MCU is not only a product of contemporary politics, but many of its stories seem to be direct responses to the problems of the day. Racial injustice, environmental catastrophe, and political misinformation are not just contemporary social ills, they are also key thematic elements of recent MCU blockbusters. In The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, more than twenty-five leading scholars examine these complex themes. Part one explores how political issues are depicted in the origin stories; part two examines how the MCU depicts classic political themes like government and power; and part three explores questions of diversity and representation in the MCU. The volume’s various chapters examine a wide range of topics: Black Panther and the “racial contract,” Captain America and the political philosophy of James Madison, Dr. Strange and colonial imperialism, S.H.I.E.L.D. and civil-military relations, Spider-Man and environmentalism, and Captain Marvel and second-wave feminism. The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the first book to look expansively at politics in the MCU and ask the question, “What lessons are this entertainment juggernaut teaching audiences about politics, society, power, gender, and inequality?”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe--comprised of films, broadcast television and streaming series and digital shorts--has generated considerable fan engagement with its emphasis on socially relevant characters and plots. Beyond considerable box office achievements, the success of Marvel's movie studios has opened up dialogue on social, economic and political concerns that challenge established values and beliefs. This collection of new essays examines those controversial themes and the ways they represent, construct and distort American culture.
"Through a subtle reading of the writings of Homer, Virgil, and Hannah Arendt, Barbara Cassin produces an in-depth analysis, at once scholarly and personal, of nostalgia. Where does nostalgia come from? Where do we truly feel at home? Cassin explores the notion that nostalgia has less to do with place and more to do with language"--
What makes someone a hero? In the early 1960's, the image of a superhero was someone with a square jaw, a muscular build, and a quick smile whose biggest personal problem was trying to keep their girlfriends from guessing their secret identities. Then writer Stan Lee and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created a group of superheroes who revolutionized comics. These heroes, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, The X-men, Iron Man, Captain America and others, were not perfect heroes living in a perfect world, but fallible people with physical ailments and personal problems like our own. While the authors and artists who created them did not intend to write explicitly religious stories, their tales of imperfect heroes who try to do the right thing despite the many challenges they face, provide us with the opportunity to reflect on our own faith journeys as we strive to live heroic lives in the real world. Each chapter reflects on the heroes' most famous adventures and discusses the ways in which we are called to overcome many of the same obstacles they face as we strive to carry out the ministries to which God calls us. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection or group study.
Provides a contemporary view of the intertwined relationship of communication and religion The Handbook of Religion and Communication presents a detailed investigation of the complex interaction between media and religion, offering diverse perspectives on how both traditional and new media sources continue to impact religious belief and practice across multiple faiths around the globe. Contributions from leading international scholars address key themes such as the changing role of religious authority in the digital age, the role of media in cultural shifts away from religious institutions, and the ways modern technologies have transformed how religion is communicated and portrayed. Divided into five parts, the Handbook opens with a state-of-the-art overview of the subject’s intellectual landscape, introducing the historical background, theoretical foundations, and major academic approaches to communication, media, and religion. Subsequent sections focus on institutional and functional perspectives, theological and cultural approaches, and new approaches in digital technologies. The essays provide insight into a wide range of topics, including religious use of media, religious identity, audience gratification, religious broadcasting, religious content in entertainment, films and religion, news reporting about religion, race and gender, the sex-religion matrix, religious crisis communication, public relations and advertising, televangelism, pastoral ministry, death and the media, online religion, future directions in religious communication, and more. Explores the increasing role of media in creating religious identity and communicating religious experience Discusses the development and evolution of the communication practices of various religious bodies Covers all major media sources including radio, television, film, press, digital online content, and social media platforms Presents key empirical research, real-world case studies, and illustrative examples throughout Encompasses a variety of perspectives, including individual and institutional actors, academic and theoretical areas, and different forms of communication media Explores media and religion in Judeo-Christian traditions, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, religions of Africa, Atheism, and others The Handbook of Religion and Communication is an essential resource for scholars, academic researchers, practical theologians, seminarians, mass communication researchers, and undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on media and religion.
The connection between popular culture and religion is an enduring part of American life. With seventy-five percent new content, the third edition of this multifaceted and popular collection has been revised and updated throughout to provide greater religious diversity in its topics and address critical developments in the study of religion and popular culture. Ideal for classroom use, this expanded volume gives increased attention to the implications of digital culture and the increasingly interactive quality of popular culture provides a framework to help students understand and appreciate the work in diverse fields, methods, and perspectives contains an updated introduction, discussion questions, and other instructional tools