Hero stories are saturated with cultural messages, and their meaning-making is deeply embedded in their social functions. Importantly, hero stories always have a soteriological dimension. But what kind of heroes “save the day” today? Although the archetypal Hero of Joseph Campbell’s imagination and the silent loner of the “American Monomyth” still retain traction, they now compete with hero-figures who have moved beyond the white, able-bodied male to embrace the full range of positionalities, both human (gender, age, ethnicity, ability, and cultural heritage) and transhuman (cyborg, monstrous, non-human animal, alien, even AI). What does the expansion of heroes say about their nature and role in contemporary society, and what does it imply about the society for which these new kinds of heroes have meaning and function?
The expansion of the hero figure also reflects changes in the way that we imagine ourselves and our relationships with others and the world around us. Sometimes hero stories confirm dominant paradigms of ethics and values in coded and subtle ways. Other times they circumvent expectations, proposing different and often subversive ideals. Such stories can challenge conventional conceptions of good and evil, and shed light on the spaces in between and the places beyond.
The past decades have witnessed an explosion of scholarship on heroes and their stories in contemporary popular culture, as old models are pushed aside to accommodate new realities. Too often, however, this scholarship has remained siloed by disciplinary barriers in the academy or isolated by the media boundaries that separate studies on films or television from those on literature, music, or video games.
The purpose of this conference is to bring scholars across disciplines into conversation on the nature and role of heroes in popular culture in all its media expressions, and on the influence of hero stories on contemporary society. To this end, we are delighted to announce our three keynote speakers (each onsite):
Julian C. Chambliss is a Professor of English and the Val Berryman Curator of History at the MSU Museum at Michigan State University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience (2013) and Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2018). His exhibition for the MSU Museum, “Beyond the Black Panther: Vision of Afrofuturism in American Comics,” explores Afrofuturist theme comics produced in the United States.
Mia Consalvo is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies & Design at Concordia University Montreal. She is the author of many studies, including Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts (2016), and, with Christopher Paul, Real Games: What’s Legitimate and What’s Not in Contemporary Videogames (2019), both from MIT Press.
Catherine Kineweskwêw Richardson is a Métis professor in the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University Montreal and the former Director of its First Peoples Studies program. Cathy holds a research chair in Indigenous Healing Knowledges and is co-director of both the Centre for Oral History and Storytelling and the Centre for Response-Based Practice. Professor Richardson is the author of many books are articles, including Facing the Mountain: Indigenous Healing in the Shadow of Colonialism.
***Call for Proposals***
We welcome paper proposals on all aspects of heroes in contemporary popular culture. Proposals from doctoral candidates are encouraged. Please submit your proposal to Sarina Odden Meyer <sarina.meyer@mail.concordia.ca> before 10 January 2025. Your proposal should contain your full name, your preferred pronouns, your institution (if applicable), the title of your presentation, and an abstract of approximately 100 words.
Please also indicate whether you expect to attend the conference in person or online (Zoom). While we are presently unable to cover costs of transportation or lodging for onsite participants, we will arrange a conference hotel with favourable rates and within easy walking proximity to both universities, and we will also cover the cost of all meals. If our grant application is successful (results will be announced in June 2025), we expect to cover additional costs. Finally, we expect to publish revised versions of selected conference papers in an edited volume.
Conference Organisers: Sarina Odden Meyer (Concordia University Montréal), Gerbern Oegema (McGill University), Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University Montréal)