2017 | 1
Recent Submissions
- ArticleDeconstructing Gilgul, Finding Identity: Captain America and the Winter Soldier in a Judaistic PerspectiveHausmanninger, Thomas (2017) , S. 105-121Captain America and Bucky, characters who appear in Marvel Comics, seem to be temporally displaced. The article scrutinizes that temporal displacement, comparing it with the Judaistic concept of gilgul – the transmigration or reincarnation of the soul – in Kabbalah and Hasidism. Furthermore, the article compares the presentation of these characters and their displacement in the original comics and the subsequent movies.
- ArticleBulletproof Love: Luke Cage (2016) and ReligionDerry, Ken; White Hodge, Daniel; Zwissler, Laurel; Talbert, Stanley; Cressler, Matthew J.; Gill, Jon Ivan (2017) , S. 123-155There are many ways to think about religion and popular culture. One method is to ask where and when we see what might be commonly understood as “religious tradition(s)” explicitly on display. Another is to think about superhero narratives themselves as “religious”, using this term as a conceptual tool for categorizing and thereby better understanding particular dimensions of human experience. This article takes a variety of approaches to understanding religion in relation to the recent television series LUKE CAGE (Netflix, US 2016). These approaches take their hermeneutical cues from a range of disciplines, including studies of the Bible; Hip Hop; gender; Black Theology; African American religion; and philosophy. The results of this analysis highlight the polysemic nature of popular culture in general, and of superhero stories in particular. Like religious traditions themselves, the show is complex and contradictory: it is both progressive and reactionary; emphasizes community and valorizes an individual; critiques and endorses Christianity; subverts and promotes violence. Depending on the questions asked, LUKE CAGE (2016) provides a range of very different answers.
- ArticleBridging Real and Virtual: A Spiritual ChallengeHeim, Michael R. (2017) , S. 159-181The question of how to bridge virtuality and reality intensified in 2016 with the release of several consumer products. The article begins by reviewing two anxieties about virtual reality raised at a 1999 conference. To address these anxieties, the paper draws on post-Jungian archetypal psychology (James Hillman, Thomas Moore) and the retrieval of Renaissance theology (Marsilio Ficino). Two experiences with Samsung Gear VR then illustrate how classic archetypal elements can contribute to active procedures for bridging the virtual and the real.
- ArticleOn the History and Hermeneutics of ComicsWessely, Christian (2017) , S. 17-44What is a comic? The simple answer states that a comic is a drawn story that is picture- rather than text-oriented and told serially. In other words, a comic is a type of illustration. Realism is not its goal; rather a narrative is developed through reduction according to specific stylistic means. I start this article with a definition of the term “comic”, and move on to highlight the complexity of the comic and to argue that insight into this complexity is necessary for its correct interpretation. Only then can we recognise that the comic is not only entertaining but also, in its own way, a vehicle for content that might be system confirming and propagandistic but can also be system critical. Doing so allows us to see the potential of the comic that is embedded in its particular affinity with nonlinear interactive audiovisual media.
- ReviewGame review: The Turing Test (Bulkhead Interactive)Bosman, Frank G (2017) , S. 185-190
- ReviewBook review: Sébastien Fevry/Serge Goriely/Arnaud Join-Lambert (eds.), Regards croisés sur IncendiesPezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (2017) , S. 191-193
- ReviewBook review: Anna Neumaier, religion@home? Religions-bezogene Online-Plattformen und ihre NutzungScolari, Baldassare (2017) , S. 195-199
- ReviewGame review: Samorost 3 (Puzzle)Wessely, Christian (2017) , S. 199-205
- ArticleRampant Lechers, Chaste Heroes: (De-)Sexualised Violence in Comic book Screen AdaptationsHeimerl, Theresia (2017) , S. 45-57Violence is a central element of comic book screen adaptations in both Hollywood (Marvel, DC) and Japan. Yet while sexual violence is openly shown in film versions of manga, coded sexualised violence dominates Western productions. Positively connoted protagonists exercise violence, but no sexualised or sexual violence, in both groups. Conversely, villains are characterised by violence and some form of sexually grounded violence, but in Western films, they are ultimately repressed lechers, and only in Japanese productions do they rampantly lose their inhibitory control. Moreover,the heroes of Japanese films are noticeably less chaste than the almost asceticcelibate romantics of Marvel and DC.
- ArticleThe Problem of Evil in DC Universe Animated Movies, 2007–2016: DC Multiverse, an Ironic Illustration of Leibniz’s Theodicy?El-Khoury, Toufic (2017) , S. 59-74This article explores the question of evil and its metaphysical and moral implications in a series of animated movie adaptations of the DC Universe produced since 2006. The contemporary evolution of the medium, called the “Iron Age of comics”, has seen the auto-reflexive nature of comics produce problems and themes related to the main question discussed in Christian theodicy: how can we perceive and define the possibility of evil in a world where God’s omnipotence should have eliminated such a possibility? Moreover, why does evil seem to spread indefinitely in spite of all the efforts deployed by superheroes to stop evil? We will discuss the problem of evil as a natural narrative topic in light of comics’ mythological and religious roots and with a particular study case: DC Comics Multiverse as an illustration of Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” argument.
- ArticleShadows of the Bat: Constructions of Good and Evil in the Batman Movies of Tim Burton and Christopher NolanBorn, Simon Philipp (2017) , S. 75-104The superhero narrative is typically premised on the conflict between the hero and the villain, the mythical struggle between good and evil. It therefore promotes a Manichaean worldview where good and evil are clearly distinguishable quantities. This bipolar model is questioned in the Batman movies of Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan. Since his creation in 1939, Batman has blurred the line between black and white unlike any other classic comic book superhero. As a “floating signifier”, he symbolizes the permeability of boundaries, for his liminal character inhabits a world between light and darkness, order and anarchy, hero and villain. Drawing on the complex ambiguity of the character, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan deconstruct the traditional dichotomy of good and evil in the superhero narrative by reversing its polarity and emphasizing the fictionality of it all. Although they differ in style and method, both filmmakers invite us to overcome the Manichaean belief in favor of a more ambivalent and sophisticated viewpoint.
- ArticleEditorialOrnella, Alexander D.; Wessely, Christian (2017) , S. 9-16