Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an edited volume that explores the intersection of religion and cinema through the lenses of critical discourse. The focus of the shared inquiry are various films comprising the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and corresponding Netflix series. The contributors explore various religious themes and how they intersect with culture through the canon on the MCU. The first part focuses on responses to the societal, governmental, and cultural context that solidified with clarity during the 2016 Presidential Election cycle in the United States and in the following administration. Additionally, it provides lenses and resources for engaging in productive public actions. Part two explores cultural resources of sustaining activism and resistance as well as some of the key issues at stake in public action. The third part centers on militarization and resistance to state violence. Taken in concert, these three sections work together to provide frames for understanding while also keeping us engaged in the concrete action to mobilize social change. The overarching aim of the volume is to promote critical discourse regarding the dynamics of activism and political resistance.
Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an edited volume that explores the intersection of religion and cinema through the lenses of critical discourse. The focus of the shared inquiry are various films comprising the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and corresponding Netflix series. The contributors explore various religious themes and how they intersect with culture through the canon on the MCU. The first part focuses on responses to the societal, governmental, and cultural context that solidified with clarity during the 2016 Presidential Election cycle in the United States and in the following administration. Additionally, it provides lenses and resources for engaging in productive public actions. Part two explores cultural resources of sustaining activism and resistance as well as some of the key issues at stake in public action. The third part centers on militarization and resistance to state violence. Taken in concert, these three sections work together to provide frames for understanding while also keeping us engaged in the concrete action to mobilize social change. The overarching aim of the volume is to promote critical discourse regarding the dynamics of activism and political resistance.
Preface: Marveling Religion: Visual Culture as a Common Tongue
Daniel White Hodge and Jennifer Baldwin
Technology, Violence, and Sacrifice
Chapter One: “I See A Suit of Armor Around the World: Tony Stark’s Techno-Idolatry and Self-Sacrificial Love
George A. Dunn and Jason T. Eberl
Chapter Two: Mimesis, Conflict, and Sacrificial Crisis in Black Panther
Matthew Brake
Chapter Three: Bulletproof Love: Luke Cage (2016) and Religion
Ken Derry, Daniel White Hodge, Laurel Zwissler, Stanley Talbert, Matthew J. Cressler, and Jon Ivan Gill
Power, Worth, and Society
Chapter Four: Old Gods in New Films: History, Culture, and Religion in Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Thor: Ragnarok
Rhiannon Gran and Jo Henderson-Merrygold
Chapter Five: The Worthiness of Thor
Adam Barkman and Bennett Soenen
Chapter Six: “Who Are You?”:René Girard, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Black Panther
Ryan Smock
Chapter Seven: The Failure of a God: Thor, the Snap, and Post-Holocaust Political Theology
Andrew T. Vink
Chapter Eight: Mysterio as Antichrist in SpiderMan: Far From Home
George Tsakiridis
Deconstructing Norms, Imagining the New
Chapter Nine: Science and the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Deconstructing the Boundary between Science, Technology, and Religion
Lisa Stenmark
Chapter Ten: Religion, Science, and the Marvel Universe: Re-Imagining Human-Earth Relations
Whitney Bauman and Imran Khan
Chapter Eleven: “Open Your Eye”: Psychedelics, Spirituality, and Trauma Resolution
Jennifer Baldwin
Forming Identity
Chapter Twelve: Marvelling at Captain Danvers, Or What is So Super About Our Heroes: Contesting the Identity Politics of Self-Other
John C. McDowell
Chapter Thirteen: The Super Muslim and the Marvel Cinematic Universe: A Complicated Trajectory of Fantasy and Agency
Dilyana Mincheva
Chapter Fourteen: Bad Girls Turned Superwomen: A Critical Appraisal of the MCU Archetype for Superheroines
Will Abney
Jennifer Baldwin is director of Grounding Flight Wellness Center, Woodstock, Georgia. Her primary area of scholarship is the intersection of traumatology and systematic theology.
Daniel White Hodge is associate professor of intercultural communication and chair of the communication arts department at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois.
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