*** PUBLICATION KLAXON ***
Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes: Un/Making Worlds
*** NEW BOOK ALERT *** OPEN ACCESS *** SUPERHEROES *** FANS *** RADICAL IMAGINATION *** WORLDMAKING *** STORYTELLING ***
I’m delighted to announce that my new book about superheroes, their fans, and the radical imagination has been published by punctum books, an independent non-profit press, and a rather brilliant one at that!
Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes: Un/Making Worlds offers a speculative response to the question of superhero meaning (making), detailing not so much a hunt for genre meaning as a trip through a genre’s meaningscape. Looking anew at superhero meaning-making practices allows a distinct way of thinking about and describing the creative, formal, and ideological conditions of the genre and its protagonists, one removed from corralling binaries, one foregrounding the idea of a synergy—often unseen, uneasy, and even hostile—between official and unofficial agents of superhero meaning and one reframing familiar questions: What kinds of meaning do superhero texts engender? How is this meaning made? By whom and under what conditions? What processes and practices inform, regulate, and extend superhero meaning? And finally, scrutinizing superhero meaning (making) presents a new question: How might we reimagine its agents, surfaces, and spaces?
Centering the experiences and practices of excluded and marginalized superhero fans, Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes reveals that genre meaning is not lodged in one place or another, neither in its official creators or fans, nor in “black and white” conservatism or in a “rainbow” of progressive possibilities. Nor is it even located somewhere in the in-between; it is instead better conceived of as an antagonistic, in-process nexus of meaning (making) undergirded by imbricated systems of power.
The superhero genre contains multitudes! Though it too often reverts back to its most conservative form, Ellen Kirkpatrick’s tour de force book makes the case for the radical potential and transformative power of the superhero, a trope she traces across media and history, armed with state of the art theories of genre, world-making, and the civic imagination. I could not be more excited to see such a book coming out in the current moment where there are superheroes, seemingly, everywhere we look.
— Henry Jenkins, author of Comics and Stuff
If you're interested in reviewing it or would like further information, please feel free to get in touch with me (via my website or @elk@zirk.us). And please, if you haven’t already done so, subscribe to receive new posts directly in your inbox!
This new section of The Break is dedicated to all things Un/Making Worlds. In addition to excerpts from the book, thematic notes, and reviews, you’ll find material that didn’t make it into the final cut, the darlings I had to kill, and new pieces that arose during and after the publication process, a lengthy affair shot through with joys and sorrows that forms the subject of an upcoming piece on contemporary academic publishing. Observant readers may also wonder at the book’s lack of an “Acknowledgements” section, a curious gap that I’ll fill in the coming weeks. A venerable tradition, my acknowledgements proved to be the one piece I couldn’t write—until now, that is. Because, alongside celebrating all the wonderful people who have helped me get my thoughts on a page, my pages in a book, and my book into the world, I also want to place my academic experience in a wider context, as part of a broader conversation around academia, power, and professional relationships. In the meantime, look out for book-related pieces on speculative fiction, media fandom, media representation, libraries, counterstorytelling, and much more…
I’m excited about embarking on this post-publication journey and sharing my ideas with you, an undertaking that I hope will sow the seeds for further discussion about un/making worlds, a project all about rescripting stories: genre stories, fan stories, life stories. And where better to begin than by sharing the story of a book, its Table of Contents…
And, if any of this piques your interest, remember that my book is open access, and there are three easy ways to grab a copy today!
You can buy a copy here (a great way to support me and punctum books).
You can download a copy here for a small or large donation (or perhaps become a subscriber) to punctum books.
You can download a copy here for free (and then, if you enjoy it, head back to punctum books and support this fantastic independent non-profit press by purchasing a copy or making a donation.
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Until next time… happy reading!