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WiSe 15/16: Caped Crusaders in the Digital Age - Comic Book Superheroes and Popular Seriality in Contemporary American Film and Television

Felix Brinker

Kommentar

For figures born more than half a century ago in the pages of American comic books, superheroes like Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, or Captain America exhibit a remarkable omnipresence on the big and small screens of our contemporary media environment. Film adaptations of titles by DC Comics and Marvel Comics (the USA's two biggest publishers of superhero comics) currently constitute one of the most popular genres in American blockbuster cinema, which has churned out close to 40 big-budget movies based on iconic properties during the last decade alone-among them high-grossing productions like Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight-trilogy for Warner Bros, Disney's string of movies based on Marvel characters (e.g. The Avengers, Iron Man 3, or Guardians of the Galaxy), or Sony's series of Spider-Man films. In recent years, American television has latched onto the commercial success of these productions and released a string of drama series based on superhero comic books, from The CW's Arrow (since 2012) and The Flash (since 2014), to ABC's Marvel's Agent of S.H.I.E.LD. (since 2013) and Marvel's Agent Carter (2014), to Fox's Gotham (since 2014) and Netflix's Marvel's Daredevil (2015). This seminar engages with the surprising longevity of comic book superheroes, their filmic and televisual incarnations in the early 21st century, and discusses recent examples from both American film and television as prominent examples of popular serial storytelling in the digital era. In doing so, the seminar addresses aspects ranging from the history and iconicity of superhero figures, to theories of mass culture and popular seriality, questions about genre and narrative form, to the politics of superhero narratives, the economics of contemporary Hollywood production, the impact of digitization on contemporary film and television, and the practices of fan cultures. Participants are expected to watch several films and parts of television series on their own time (more detailed requirements will be specified in class). Please note: the first session of this class takes place on October 29. To make up for the sessions not held in the first weeks of October, additional sessions (or longer sessions) might be scheduled for later in the semester. If you are interested in taking this seminar, please send an email to felix.brinker@fu-berlin.de, giving your name and indicating which semester you are in, by Thursday, October 15th. Schließen

14 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Do, 14:00 - 16:00 14 Termine

Do, 29.10.2015 14:00 - 16:00

Dozenten:
Felix Brinker