Academic literature on the topic 'Post-heroic Age'

Communicating evidence-based nutrition messages to the public is challenging and is often in conflict with popular opinions, particularly from social media influencers (SMIs). In order to increase engagement with nutrition professionals (NPs) on social media, we aimed to explore young adults’ perceptions of the authenticity and trustworthiness of SMIs and NPs Instagram posts. A cross-sectional questionnaire was administered to students (n = 149) from an Australian University. Participants viewed a real-life Instagram profile and one post from both a NP and a SMI. Main outcomes were post authenticity and trustworthiness, and emotional message appeals measured on five-point Likert scales. Regression models were developed to assess whose post (the NP or SMI) was perceived to be more authentic and trustworthy. Participants were young adults (median age (25th, 75th percentiles): 20 (19,21)), with approximately half identifying as female. A high heroic message appeal (+1SD above mean) significantly increased the perceived authenticity of the NPs post only (p = 0.01). Post authenticity enhanced post trustworthiness, but only when a heroic message appeal was used by the NP. When appropriate, NPs should convey positive emotions such as bravery and success to enhance the authenticity and trustworthiness of their posts.

During the initial phase until the end of April 2020 Chancellor Angela Merkel focused on the survival of the elderly (those over 80 years of age) when justifying the measures taken against the spreading of Corona virus. In this context she ignored or at least didn’t mention strong arguments concerning the assessment of fundamental rights and of inter-generation fairness. This policy in favour of the elderly reflects a post heroic mindset which neglects coping with future demands in a responsible manner. This change in the general attitude is exemplified by references to Napoleon, Goethe and Max Weber.

AbstractThis paper illustrates the manner in which inceased political and community interest in Antarctica is shifting the focus of Australian Antarctic research towards environmental management, creating tensions amongst bureaucrats and scientists as to programme priorities and funding allocations, and argues the existence of three distinct eras, each with particular chacteristics and orientation, but all reflecting political and scientific perspectives about Antarctic at the relevant time: (a) idosyncratic individualism in the ‘heroic age’ of Antarctic exploration 1890–1945; (b) hydra-headed science programmes within the Antarctic Treaty system 1945–1959–1990; and (c) prospective maturity management of the Antarctic environment in the post-CRAMRA era, 1990 onwards.

This paper examines representational issues that emerge when Anne Fine's coming of age depiction of an extreme journey based on an historic period of social and political conflict is read as a parable about world politics. The Road of Bones explores, through an adolescent character's struggle to survive State-led terrorism against its subjects, political process, societal upheaval, and the loss of human rights. But if Fine's novel raises issues about political governance in ways that interrogate post 9/11 contemporary politics, the work also raises issues about cultural representation and global audiences when the compromised position of Fine's heroic subject draws upon previously established East/West polarities that privilege a Western readership. In the concluding scenes the protagonist's agentic response may be dually interpreted: is this response to be construed as activism or, more negatively, as a form of terrorism?

The term midrash has a specific meaning and a broader one. Specifically, midrash refers to the post Talmudic body of writings (post-500 C.E.) such as Midrash Rabbah and Pirke de-Rabi Eliezer. In broader terms, midrash has come to mean a Jewish story that explains, clarifies, or elaborates on an event or passage in the Torah. There are many stories in midrasnhic sources that are appropriate and valuable to retell for children. A retelling of the story "Solomon and the Demon King," for instance, can captivate a fifth grader today who plays computer games and rides a skateboard, just as much as it did a shtetl boy who walked barefoot to beder and learned to chant Talmudic passages at age four. Rabbinic stories are not old and outdated, but alive and timeless. Within these stories, children can find heroic individuals just as brave and daring as the current ones who sport masks and capes and fancy weaponry-people like Rabbi Johanan ben Zaikai and Rabbi Akiva. But these rabbinic heroes provide something many of the television heroes do not-moral and ethical values as a basis for action.

AbstractThe assassination of Talat Pasha by Soghomon Tehlirian on 15 March 1921 in Berlin, as well as Tehlirian’s trial and acquittal on 2–3 June 1921, have contributed to the formation of conflicting legacies of the Armenian Genocide. Though minuscule in terms of violence and legal ramifications, these events and their reimagination in contentious narratives have shaped a dominant prism of sensemaking in Turkish-Armenian relations. In the imagination of rival groups, Talat and Tehlirian compete for the very same normative categories of hero and victim at once and each are demonized as a villain and perpetrator. Moreover, it is each figure’s embodiment of martyrdom and revenge that explains why their heroizations have proved so enduring and effective across time and space. This mutual framework of sensemaking, which I call the Talat-Tehlirian complex, ultimately denies the chances of historical reconciliation. In terms of its theoretical implications, this case study explains how a martyr-avenger complex can continuously demand solidarity, sustain grievances, and sacralize violence in post-conflict societies. Based on a thick description of what happened in Berlin in 1921 and its contentious narratives across different generations, this paper calls for a transition to a post-heroic age in Turkish-Armenian relations.

The low consumption of vegetables and fruit in school-age children is one of the unresolved nutritional problems in Indonesia. A way to improve vegetable and fruit eating behavior is to increase students' knowledge and attitudes through illustrated story book and heroic tales. The aim of this study is to find out the impact of picture books on students' knowledge and attitude. This is a quasy experimental study with Non equivalent control group with a pre-test and post-test which was followed by 97 fourth gradeelementary school students including 41 students of intervention group and 56 students of control group. The mann-whitney test is used to see whether there are relationships between independent variable (given of illustrated story books) and the dependent variable (knowledge and attitude) between the intervention and control groups.The results showed a significant increase in knowledge and attitudes in the group which given illustrated story book. There were also significant differences in knowledge changes between the intervention and control groups. Illustrated story books can significantly increase students' knowledge about vegetables and fruitKeywords : Knowledge; Attitudes; Vegetable; Fruits; Illustrated Story Book

BACK TO KOSMOS | In the decades following World War II, the utopia of a future communist state in the Soviet Union became linked to the tech nological conquest of cosmos through space travel. This relation found a primary expression in the heroic myths created in the popular visual culture surrounding the Soviet space program. After the collapse of the Soviet regime, the aesthetics and politics of its space ideology have been subjected to critical evaluation as part of a wider struggle over the legacy of the communist era. This article discusses three recent art works dealing with this issue: Victor Pelevin’s novel Omon Ra (1992), Adam Bartos’ photo book Kosmos – A Portrait of the Russian Space Age (2001) and Aleksei Fedorchenko’s film First on the Moon (2005). The article argues that the three works illustrate a development in the relation to the space myth from critical denunciation and even ridicule to ambivalent nostalgia. It is further suggested that this development is symptomatic for a wider change in the attitude towards utopic projects, which is not only expressed in the changing assessment of the legacy of the SovietUnion in Russia, but also in the aesthetic and political imaginary in our post-political era.

This paper addresses the Ekthesis Chronica (Ἔκθεσις χρονική), a Greek chronicle compiled by an anonymous cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the first half of the sixteenthcentury, which encompassed the events of the Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman history. Its distinctive feature is a recurrent alternation of seemingly mutually excluding points of view. Its neighboring chapters comply with the demands of different genres, accepting the set of values associated with them. The imaginary world of the chapters dealing with the events prior to 1453 reminds the reader of the heroic world of chivalric romances. The chapters describing the fall of Constantinople are may be read as a prosaic lamentation of the loss of the city which embodied the Byzantine civilization as a whole. In the post-Byzantine section, there appeared three approaches to the Ottoman rule over the Greeks. Whenever the chronicle-writer switches to the apocalyptic mode, the sultan becomes an infidel murderer of Christians. If, by contrast, he adopts the aretalogic (hagiographic) mode, the same sultan transforms into a philosopher on the throne. Finally, the pragmatic mode makes him a self-serving albeit sympathetic moderator in the conflicts inside the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The closer is the author to contemporary history, the more unfitting he feels the generic forms inherited from the age of the fall of Constantinople. Eventually, the chronicle-writer makes an attempt to create a new type of narrative with the characters on the foreground, which will allow his reader to feel empathy for them notwithstanding their language and faith.

Il progetto “La Maschera dell’Antieroe. Evoluzione della Mitologia e della Filosofia del Supereroe in Fumetti e Graphic Novel, dalla Dark Age a Oggi” nasce con lo scopo di analizzare e approfondire gli aspetti filosofici propri della narrativa supereroica, considerando prevalentemente il media nel quale tale narrativa ha preso vita, il fumetto, ma senza tralasciare le più recenti manifestazioni del fenomeno come film e serie televisive. L’obiettivo è stato quello di scoprire quelle che sono le strutture tipiche del mondo supereroico e quali sono i concetti filosofici in esse impliciti. A questo proposito non si è utilizzato un determinato autore attraverso il quale analizzare la figura del supereroe, ma piuttosto si è cercato di partire da fumetti e graphic novel stessi, svelando gradualmente la filosofia che gli è propria. Per questo motivo, come è evidente dalla bibliografia, è stato necessario considerare un vasto numero di autori. Si è considerata la narrativa supereroica come “specchio” del mondo e della società occidentale, nel senso Stendhaliano del termine. Si inizia a parlare di supereroi con Superman, pubblicato per la prima volta su Action Comics #1 nel 1938. La figura non è rimasta immutata, ma si è evoluta e modificata assieme alla società nella quale è nata. Pur considerando anche le prime due età del fumetto supereroico, la Golden Age e Silver Age, si è scelto di partire dalla Dark Age, età che comincia circa all’inizio degli anni ’80. Questa è ancora oggi considerata la più grande (e da alcuni l’ultima) trasformazione che il genere ha conosciuto e dalla quale è nato il supereroe così come lo conosciamo oggi. Questa trasformazione è legata a quella che è una profonda crisi della società americana degli anni ’60 e ’70, crisi che esplode anche nel mondo dei supereroi influenzando, da un lato una decostruzione della figura stessa del supereroe e di ciò che rappresenta, dall’altro la nascita e l’ascesa di un elevato numero di antieroi che domineranno questo periodo. Testi come Watchmen di Alan Moore e The Dark Knight Returns di Frank Miller sono pietre miliari e opere emblematiche di questa Age. È stato osservato che aspetti caratteristici della rivoluzione della Dark Age sono riapparsi, mutatis mutandis, oggi: dopo un periodo di transizione del corso degli anni ’90, la figura del supereroe e dell’eroe è nuovamente controversa e a volte ambigua, mentre l’antieroe ha sempre più successo. Per questi e altri motivi si è voluta designare l’età contemporanea con il termine di Post-heroic Age. Il lavoro è stato strutturato in quattro sezioni principali. La prima, riguardante il supereroe, ha inquadrato le strutture e i concetti base di questa narrativa. Chiave per comprendere tale figura è il suo dualismo e il suo rapporto con la maschera. La maschera, intesa come idolo e doppia identità è l’elemento più distintivo del genere. Il supereroe non solo si “nasconde” dietro una maschera come facevano personaggi quali Zorro o The Phantom, ma assume una seconda identità legata a un simbolo e a una differente Weltanschauung. Questa doppia identità definisce il rapporto tra il personaggio e la sua società, permettendo all’eroe di mantenersi in un fondamentale stato liminale, in bilico tra il mondo umano, la società che protegge e della quale è parte grazie all’identità civile, e il mondo “super”, inumano, del quale fa parte nel momento che indossa la maschera. È possibile già cogliere, nel rapporto del supereroe con la maschera, le contraddizioni e le aporie che una tale figura comporta in particolare in relazione alla legge e alla morale. Il supereroe combatte per difendere lo status quo, la Giustizia, il “Bene”, ma per farlo agisce necessariamente al di fuori della legge, è – de facto – un criminale. È solo il permanere nello stato liminale che gli permette di “sopravvivere” e operare all’interno di questa contraddizione fondamentale. Perderlo significa – spesso – perdere lo status di “supereroe”, diventando un antieroe o un villain. Per approfondire il concetto di “maschera” si sono rivelate fondamentali le opere di Friedrich Nietzsche e Jean-Paul Sartre. Altro elemento chiave preso in esame è stato il rapporto del supereroe con la violenza, analizzato facendo riferimento principalmente all’opera di René Girard. Quali sono e cosa comportano i metodi utilizzati dall’eroe? Fino a dove può spingersi il supereroe per difendere il “Bene”? E in cosa consiste esattamente questo “Bene”? Queste le domande che hanno guidato questo punto dell’analisi. La seconda sezione ha preso in esame il villain, il cattivo. Fondamentale è il rapporto che lega tra loro le due figure, che si sono rivelate meno distanti di quanto potrebbero inizialmente sembrare. L’analisi sul villain ha definito e approfondito differenti tipologie. La separazione dei vari tipi di cattivo non è netta, ma è stata metodologicamente utile per focalizzarsi su determinati aspetti che un determinato villain rivela: ad esempio per approfondire il legame tra villain ed eroe si sono considerati il Doppelgänger e il genio criminale, l’arcinemico del supereroe. Le altre categorie individuate sono quella del mostro, del comandante nemico, del comune supercriminale e del villain eroico. Alla base dell’analisi sul villain sta la figura del mostro, inteso anche in senso morale. Il mostro è una figura chiave per studiare non solo il cattivo ma anche la dimensione dell’inumano, rappresentata dalla maschera e legata, quindi, anche al supereroe. La terza sezione è il “cuore” di questo lavoro e si concentra sulla figura dell’antieroe. Tale figura si è rivelata centrale per comprendere e definire chi è il supereroe oggi. La domanda “quando un personaggio è un antieroe, quando invece un villain o un supereroe?” non permette una facile risposta. Elementi chiave per stabilire chi è un antieroe si sono rivelati essere la maschera, il rapporto del personaggio con la società, e il conflitto morale che di norma propone. Centrali le figure antieroiche definite “Ribelli” e “Rivoluzionari”, personaggi come V di V per Vendetta, Rorschach di Watchmen o il Punitore dell’universo Marvel. Da un punto di vista filosofico si è fatto riferimento principalmente, ma non solo, ad Albert Camus (Il Mito di Sisifo e L’Uomo in Rivolta) e al concetto di Übermensch Nietzschiano. Altre tipologie di antieroi prese in considerazione sono state: le “Parodie” (come Deadpool o l’italiano Rat-Man), i “Non-eroi”, personaggi cioè che rifiutano il ruolo di eroe e la maschera (come molti mutanti dell’universo Marvel o Jessica Jones) e infine le antieroine. Lo studio delle antieroine apre l’ultima sezione dell’opera, incentrata sulla figura della supereroina, o più in generale sulla superdonna. Si è rivelato necessario considerare separatamente e approfonditamente la figura della donna nell’universo supereroico, in quanto questa presenta delle peculiarità non indifferenti rispetto ai superuomini e ha conosciuto un’evoluzione differente. L’universo supereroico era, e in parte ancora è, principalmente maschile e a tratti maschilista. Sono state descritte e approfondite le questioni riguardante il sessismo presente nella narrativa supereroica e gli stereotipi legati alla donna, costretta spesso ad assumere ruoli “piatti” della vittima, della fidanzata o della femme fatale. Aspetto fondamentale venuto alla luce è il legame che tutte le figure femminili hanno con il concetto di antieroe, in quanto personaggi di rottura e critica di un universo prevalentemente maschile. L’analisi sulla superdonna ha anche fornito l’occasione di ripercorrere le età del fumetto supereroico e le tematiche affrontate nel corso del lavoro, per mostrarne le similitudini e le differenze nel caso specifico di eroine e villainesses. In particolare, è stato studiato il tema del corpo, in relazione alla superdonna, ma anche al supereroe in generale, tema che chiude il lavoro andando anche a ricollegarsi direttamente con quello della maschera.
The project “The Mask of the Antihero. Evolution of the Mythology and Philosophy of the Superhero in Comics and Graphic Novels, from the Dark Age to the Present” aims to analyse and explore philosophical aspects inside the superheroes’ narrative, by considering comics and graphic novels, without neglecting the most recent manifestations of the phenomena like film and series. The objective is to define the structures of the superhero’s genre and the implicit philosophical concepts. The method is not to consider a specific author to analyse the superhero figure, but rather to start from comics and graphic novels themselves and gradually reveal their philosophy. Thus, as it is evident from the bibliography, it was necessary to consider various authors. In this work, the superhero’s narrative is considered a Stendhalian “mirror” of the western world and society. The genre starts with Superman, who appears for the first time on Action Comics #1 in 1938. The “superhero” did not remain unchanged since the so-called Golden Age, but he evolved together with the society in which he was born. The first two Ages of superheroes’ history (Golden and Silver Age) are taken into account, but the exam starts with the Dark Age (early 1980s). The Dark Age’s transformation is today still considered the biggest (sometimes even the last) revolution of the genre, which defines the superhero as he is today. The Dark Age’s revolution is directly linked with a profound crisis of US-society during the 1960s and 1970s. This crisis affected the superhero’s world and forced a deconstruction of the superhero figure. The “Good” the superhero embodied is questioned, and new antiheroes arise and dominate these years. Graphic novels like Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns are emblematic milestones of this Age. It is observed that Dark Age’s characteristic aspects have reappeared, mutatis mutandis, today: after a transitional period in the 1990s, the figure of the superhero and the hero is again controversial and sometimes ambiguous, while antiheroes are increasingly successful. For these and other reasons, the contemporary Age is designated with the term Post-heroic Age. The thesis is divided into four main sections. The first concerns the superhero, and it considers the basic structures and concepts of superhero’s narrative. The key to understanding the superhero’s figure is its dualism and its relationship with the mask. The mask is intended as an idol and double identity; it is the genre’s clearest marker. Superheroes do not just “hide” behind a mask: they assume a whole new identity linked to a symbol and a different Weltanschauung. The double identity defines superhero’s relation with society and thanks to it the character can remain in a liminal state, in a balance between the human world, the society he protects, and the “super”, inhuman one, the world of the mask. The relation with the mask shows the contradictions and the aporias, which the superhero figure implies, especially in connection with law and morality. The superhero fights to defend the status quo, Justice and “Good”, but his mission requires that he acts outside the law. He is – and must be – a criminal. Only thanks to his liminal state he can operate despite this critical contradiction. If the superhero loses this state, he could become an antihero or even a villain. The works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre are fundamental to define the concept of “mask”. Another significant element examined is the superhero’s relationship with violence, analysed mainly through René Girard’s work. What are the methods used by the hero, and what do they involve? How far can the superhero go to defend the “Good”? Furthermore, what exactly is this “Good”? These questions guide this point of the analysis. The second section is regarding the villain. The relation between hero and villain is crucial, and the two figures prove to be less different as they seem at the beginning. There are different villain types: this distinction is methodologically useful for examining aspects revealed by a particular villain category. For example, the Doppelgänger and the Archenemy studies help define the relationship between superhero and supervillain. The other villain types are the Monster, the Enemy Commander, the Common Super-Criminal, and the Heroic Villain. The Monster (also in a moral sense) is the basis of the analysis regarding the villain. The Monster is also a crucial figure to study the inhuman dimension connected to the mask and, consequently, to the superhero. The third section is the “heart” of this work, and it is focused on the antihero. This figure proved to be central to comprehend and define the superhero today. The following questions do not have an easy answer: “Why do we define a character an antihero? Why a villain or a superhero?” Key elements to define an antihero are his mask, the relationship with his society, and the moral conflict he usually causes. The antiheroic figures defined as “Rebels” and “Revolutionaries” are fundamental for understanding what an antihero is: they are characters such as V (V for Vendetta), Rorschach (Watchmen) or The Punisher (Marvel universe). From a philosophical point of view, Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel and the Nietzschean Übermensch are crucial at this point of the analysis. Other types of antiheroes taken into consideration are the “Parodies” (such as Deadpool or the Italian Rat-Man), the “Non-heroes”, (characters who reject the role of hero and the mask, like many mutants of the Marvel universe or Jessica Jones) and finally the antiheroines. The chapter about the antiheroines opens the last section, which considers the superheroine and the superwoman in general. It is necessary to consider superwomen separately because they present important peculiarity compared to supermen, and they had a different evolution. The superheroes’ universe was, and in part still is, male-dominated and sometimes even sexist. The issues concerning the sexism present in superhero fiction and the stereotypes related to women often forced to assume the stereotypical roles of the victim, girlfriend, or femme fatale, are described and deepened. A fundamental aspect revealed is the link that female figures have with antiheroes, as characters of rupture and criticism of a predominantly male universe. Superwoman’s analysis also provides an opportunity to retrace the ages of superhero comics and the issues addressed in the course of the work to show the similarities and differences in heroines and villainesses’ specific case. In particular, the body’s theme is studied, concerning both superwomen and superheroes. This theme closes the work by reconnecting directly with that of the mask.

Il progetto “La Maschera dell’Antieroe. Evoluzione della Mitologia e della Filosofia del Supereroe in Fumetti e Graphic Novel, dalla Dark Age a Oggi” nasce con lo scopo di analizzare e approfondire gli aspetti filosofici propri della narrativa supereroica, considerando prevalentemente il media nel quale tale narrativa ha preso vita, il fumetto, ma senza tralasciare le più recenti manifestazioni del fenomeno come film e serie televisive. L’obiettivo è stato quello di scoprire quelle che sono le strutture tipiche del mondo supereroico e quali sono i concetti filosofici in esse impliciti. A questo proposito non si è utilizzato un determinato autore attraverso il quale analizzare la figura del supereroe, ma piuttosto si è cercato di partire da fumetti e graphic novel stessi, svelando gradualmente la filosofia che gli è propria. Per questo motivo, come è evidente dalla bibliografia, è stato necessario considerare un vasto numero di autori. Si è considerata la narrativa supereroica come “specchio” del mondo e della società occidentale, nel senso Stendhaliano del termine. Si inizia a parlare di supereroi con Superman, pubblicato per la prima volta su Action Comics #1 nel 1938. La figura non è rimasta immutata, ma si è evoluta e modificata assieme alla società nella quale è nata. Pur considerando anche le prime due età del fumetto supereroico, la Golden Age e Silver Age, si è scelto di partire dalla Dark Age, età che comincia circa all’inizio degli anni ’80. Questa è ancora oggi considerata la più grande (e da alcuni l’ultima) trasformazione che il genere ha conosciuto e dalla quale è nato il supereroe così come lo conosciamo oggi. Questa trasformazione è legata a quella che è una profonda crisi della società americana degli anni ’60 e ’70, crisi che esplode anche nel mondo dei supereroi influenzando, da un lato una decostruzione della figura stessa del supereroe e di ciò che rappresenta, dall’altro la nascita e l’ascesa di un elevato numero di antieroi che domineranno questo periodo. Testi come Watchmen di Alan Moore e The Dark Knight Returns di Frank Miller sono pietre miliari e opere emblematiche di questa Age. È stato osservato che aspetti caratteristici della rivoluzione della Dark Age sono riapparsi, mutatis mutandis, oggi: dopo un periodo di transizione del corso degli anni ’90, la figura del supereroe e dell’eroe è nuovamente controversa e a volte ambigua, mentre l’antieroe ha sempre più successo. Per questi e altri motivi si è voluta designare l’età contemporanea con il termine di Post-heroic Age. Il lavoro è stato strutturato in quattro sezioni principali. La prima, riguardante il supereroe, ha inquadrato le strutture e i concetti base di questa narrativa. Chiave per comprendere tale figura è il suo dualismo e il suo rapporto con la maschera. La maschera, intesa come idolo e doppia identità è l’elemento più distintivo del genere La seconda sezione ha preso in esame il villain, il cattivo. Fondamentale è il rapporto che lega tra loro le due figure, che si sono rivelate meno distanti di quanto potrebbero inizialmente sembrare. L’analisi sul villain ha definito e approfondito differenti tipologie. La separazione dei vari tipi di cattivo non è netta, ma è stata metodologicamente utile per focalizzarsi su determinati aspetti che un determinato villain rivela: ad esempio per approfondire il legame tra villain ed eroe si sono considerati il Doppelgänger e il genio criminale, l’arcinemico del supereroe. Le altre categorie individuate sono quella del mostro, del comandante nemico, del comune supercriminale e del villain eroico. La terza sezione è il “cuore” di questo lavoro e si concentra sulla figura dell’antieroe. Tale figura si è rivelata centrale per comprendere e definire chi è il supereroe oggi. La domanda “quando un personaggio è un antieroe, quando invece un villain o un supereroe?” non permette una facile risposta. Elementi chiave per stabilire chi è un antieroe si sono rivelati essere la maschera, il rapporto del personaggio con la società, e il conflitto morale che di norma propone. Centrali le figure antieroiche definite “Ribelli” e “Rivoluzionari”, personaggi come V di V per Vendetta, Rorschach di Watchmen o il Punitore dell’universo Marvel. Da un punto di vista filosofico si è fatto riferimento principalmente, ma non solo, ad Albert Camus (Il Mito di Sisifo e L’Uomo in Rivolta) e al concetto di Übermensch Nietzschiano. Lo studio delle antieroine apre l’ultima sezione dell’opera, incentrata sulla figura della supereroina, o più in generale sulla superdonna. Si è rivelato necessario considerare separatamente e approfonditamente la figura della donna nell’universo supereroico, in quanto questa presenta delle peculiarità non indifferenti rispetto ai superuomini e ha conosciuto un’evoluzione differente.
The project “The Mask of the Antihero. Evolution of the Mythology and Philosophy of the Superhero in Comics and Graphic Novels, from the Dark Age to the Present” aims to analyse and explore philosophical aspects inside the superheroes’ narrative, by considering comics and graphic novels, without neglecting the most recent manifestations of the phenomena like film and series. The objective is to define the structures of the superhero’s genre and the implicit philosophical concepts. The method is not to consider a specific author to analyse the superhero figure, but rather to start from comics and graphic novels themselves and gradually reveal their philosophy. Thus, as it is evident from the bibliography, it was necessary to consider various authors. In this work, the superhero’s narrative is considered a Stendhalian “mirror” of the western world and society. The genre starts with Superman, who appears for the first time on Action Comics #1 in 1938. The “superhero” did not remain unchanged since the so-called Golden Age, but he evolved together with the society in which he was born. The first two Ages of superheroes’ history (Golden and Silver Age) are taken into account, but the exam starts with the Dark Age (early 1980s). The Dark Age’s transformation is today still considered the biggest (sometimes even the last) revolution of the genre, which defines the superhero as he is today. The Dark Age’s revolution is directly linked with a profound crisis of US-society during the 1960s and 1970s. This crisis affected the superhero’s world and forced a deconstruction of the superhero figure. The “Good” the superhero embodied is questioned, and new antiheroes arise and dominate these years. Graphic novels like Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns are emblematic milestones of this Age. It is observed that Dark Age’s characteristic aspects have reappeared, mutatis mutandis, today: after a transitional period in the 1990s, the figure of the superhero and the hero is again controversial and sometimes ambiguous, while antiheroes are increasingly successful. For these and other reasons, the contemporary Age is designated with the term Post-heroic Age. The thesis is divided into four main sections. The first concerns the superhero, and it considers the basic structures and concepts of superhero’s narrative. The key to understanding the superhero’s figure is its dualism and its relationship with the mask. The mask is intended as an idol and double identity; it is the genre’s clearest marker. Superheroes do not just “hide” behind a mask: they assume a whole new identity linked to a symbol and a different Weltanschauung. The double identity defines superhero’s relation with society and thanks to it the character can remain in a liminal state, in a balance between the human world, the society he protects, and the “super”, inhuman one, the world of the mask. The second section is regarding the villain. The relation between hero and villain is crucial, and the two figures prove to be less different as they seem at the beginning. There are different villain types: this distinction is methodologically useful for examining aspects revealed by a particular villain category. For example, the Doppelgänger and the Archenemy studies help define the relationship between superhero and supervillain. The other villain types are the Monster, the Enemy Commander, the Common Super-Criminal, and the Heroic Villain. The third section is the “heart” of this work, and it is focused on the antihero. This figure proved to be central to comprehend and define the superhero today. The following questions do not have an easy answer: “Why do we define a character an antihero? Why a villain or a superhero?” Key elements to define an antihero are his mask, the relationship with his society, and the moral conflict he usually causes. The antiheroic figures defined as “Rebels” and “Revolutionaries” are fundamental for understanding what an antihero is: they are characters such as V (V for Vendetta), Rorschach (Watchmen) or The Punisher (Marvel universe). From a philosophical point of view, Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel and the Nietzschean Übermensch are crucial at this point of the analysis. The chapter about the antiheroines opens the last section, which considers the superheroine and the superwoman in general. It is necessary to consider superwomen separately because they present important peculiarity compared to supermen, and they had a different evolution.

The study of war and strategy has been at the core of the theory of international relations since the birth of the academic discipline. Strategy is a key factor in any conflict, first of all in violent conflicts. Military strategy is the bridge between politics and war. Strategic studies have mainly focused on military doctrines and the means to wage war for too long a time. Limited attention was paid to the cultural dimension of violent confrontations. Then, in the second half of the XX century the Western attention to the technological dimension of war became almost obsessive. However, if war is the continuation of politics by other means we must be aware that the human factor is of utmost importance among those “means”. The willingness of soldiers to sacrifice their life on the battlefield is the precondition to wage war. At the same time, it is also the basis of any political obligation. Hence, death is the continuation of politics by other means. Various “narratives” of war have been created in history in order to justify the individual commitment to fight and eventually die in war to attain political aims. Starting in the classical age the Western world has been developing two related narratives of war: the republican model and the decisive battle one. According to the first one the good citizen was a good soldier too, and vice-versa, while the second required the concentration of violence in space and time to break the enemy’s will to fight in the shortest possible time. The two concepts gave both moral and military sense to the violent, insensate, and chaotic environment of the battle. After the end of the cold war in most Western countries such a way of thinking on the relationship between war and politics has been undermined by several factors, first of all the unwillingness to sacrifice one’s life in war. The readiness to die in order to attain a political aim has almost vanished. On the contrary, the concept of the “decisive battle” has survived thanks to technological evolution. As a consequence, on the one hand, old figures of warriors reappeared on the battlefield: soldiers of fortune, God’s fighters, pirates, and criminals. On the other, the unwillingness to die coupled to the strategic archetype of the decisive battle is bringing more and more machines and AI into war, making it both post-heroic and post-human.

Natasha Periyan examines the early 1930s’ novels of Nancy Mitford, Storm Jameson (and Jameson’s edited collection Challenge to Death) alongside Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth and material from their letters, articles and archives to demonstrate how, through a feminist critique of masculinist, heroic militaristic traditions, these writers also explore the relative appeal of pacifism and fascism. Jameson and Brittain call for the sustained application of the intellect in the ‘war against war’, while Mitford dissects the powerful unifying appeal of fascism as a spectacle and a response to perceived political inertia. Where Jameson’s work reflects the disillusionment of the age, Brittain demands a rational, logical pacifism lamenting the tragic naivety of the ‘lost generation,’ while Mitford’s satire on fascist rhetoric reveals its communitarian ethos. The decline of the British Empire also resulted in the post-war migration of British writers to London, the literary and cultural capital of the empire.

General-interest periodicals are a preeminent source for the study of popular views and major discursive formations around the navy. This chapter offers a cross-title analysis of some of the most widely read family magazines published between 1850 and 1880 (Chambers’s Journal, The Leisure Hour, Household Words and All the Year Round). They reveal the wider social and cultural context in which the mid-Victorian naval-heroic discourse was situated: issues of masculinity, class, a new professionalism, technological advancement and a qualified attitude towards heroes and heroism. The magazines’ depictions of the navy were not simply laudatory. Above all, they reflected concern that at a time when Britain was still the only world power, its navy appeared to have entered a post-heroic phase.

The spinster is one of the most pathologized characterisations of female ageing in cultural texts, continuing to be a source of social unease for much of the twentieth century. This chapter establishes the broader social and historical contexts underlying such representations, before considering how representations of the spinster evolved in British films of the post-war era. The problematic status of the spinster was implicit in the predominant polarised representations of the type as either a comic device or a warning of the perils of single life. The chapter starts by exploring how unease about the middle-aged spinster was articulated in British films of the 1930s, whereas the elderly spinster could be a heroic martyr as in The Lady Vanishes (1938).

“In eins” shares and divides the word shibboleth with an earlier poem titled “Schibboleth.” Both are poems-to-come for each other. “Schibboleth” appears to be a more traditional post-romantic lyric than “In eins,” but a close reading reveals that the poem’s heroic-masochistic first-person narrative is undermined at every point by a poetic counterpulse. The political power of the poem manifests itself at the point at which poetic language leaves mimetic representation behind. A non-naturalistic movement hin, away, disjoints the “I” and opens the poem to the voices of the dead. The trope of apostrophe emerges as the figure of this movement. As the trope of both address and elision, apostrophe marks shibboleth as the Atemwende, the breath-turn.

This chapter discusses two Russian cultural works that conjure up the iconic image of teenage girls traversing the territory between the secular and the sacred: Svetlana Vasilenko's 1998 novella Little Fool (Durochka), and Anna Melikian's 2007 film Mermaid (Rusalka). These works are products of two very distinct moments in post-Soviet history: Vasilenko's text was published against the backdrop of the economic and social instability of the 1990s, during the chaos of the Boris Yeltsin years, while Melikian's film premiered during the relatively stable, “petrodollar-fueled prosperity” of Vladimir Putin's second term. Nonetheless, Vasilenko and Melikian both engage with the myth of the Soviet girl-martyr—as exemplified by Zoia Kosmodemianskaia, the “architext for all portraits of girl heroes” in the Soviet Union—in order to decouple heroic adolescence from Sovietness, with its attendant violence, militarization, and ideology. In their depictions of teenage girls who possess extraordinary powers, Vasilenko and Melikian each present a new adolescent savior who exposes the immorality and venality of Soviet and post-Soviet society, respectively. Little Fool and Mermaid can be understood in the context of other recent Russian works that also look to Soviet youth culture for elements that may be salvaged for the post-Soviet present.

This chapter’s title quotes Margaret Cavendish’s description of Amadis and it explores the return to prominence post-1660 of Amadis’s relationship to French, rather than Spanish, literary culture. Don Quixote’s ‘witty abusing’ of chivalric romance is tempered from the 1650s by the importation of heroic romance from French and the development of ‘serious’ romance which defines itself in opposition to its Iberian forebears. Amadis became part of the Restoration refashioning of antebellum literary culture partly thanks to English writers’ experience of exile in France and the Low Countries. After the Restoration, Amadis continued to be a popular reference point in comedies, as the archetypal text of ‘amour and adventure’ and a window onto the lost world of Caroline theatre. Behn’s Luckey Chance (1686) and Farquhar’s The Inconstant (1702) are representative of this refashioning of the literary past, while D’Urfey’s Don Quixote plays of the 1690s look back to Jacobean stage satire.

This chapter addresses a number of ways that traditional public characters have evolved to correspond with the way that moderns picture blame and causality. It looks at the decline of heroes and villains in this supposed post-heroic era. It turns to the ways that the essentialism of character work is challenged, through various attitudes that range from medicalization and skepticism through cynicism and irony. It discusses the ridicule of flat characters, the dispersal of blame in a risk society, and the invention of new terms for circumstantial victims like trauma, patients, and abnormal. It argues that these new characterizations do not escape the essential triad of villain, victim, and hero. Public characters may have changed in some ways, but they are not obsolete. And, despite modern skepticism about the traditional language of characters, heroes thrive in today’s new nationalism with leaders like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and Donald Trump.