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This collection seeks to understand the long-lasting and global appeal of Tarzan: Why is a story about a feral boy, who is raised by apes in the African jungle, so compelling and so adaptable to different cultural contexts and audiences? How is it that the same narrative serves as the basis for both children's cartoons and lavish musical productions or as a vehicle for both nationalistic discourse and for light romantic fantasy? Considering a history of criticism that highlights the imperialistic, sexist, racist underpinnings of the original Tarzan narrative, why would this character and story appeal to so many readers and viewers around the world? The essays in this volume, written by scholars living and working in Australia, Canada, Israel, The Netherlands, Germany, France and the United States explore these questions using various critical lenses. Chapters include discussions of Tarzan novels, comics, television shows, toys, films, and performances produced or distributed in the U.S., Canada, Israel, Palestine, Britain, India, The Netherlands, Germany and France and consider such topics as imperialism, national identities, language acquisition, adaptation, gender constructions, Tarzan's influence on child readers and Tarzan's continued and broad influence on cultures around the world. What emerges, when these pieces are placed into dialogue with one another, is an immensely complex picture of an enduring, multi-faceted global pop culture icon.

The word \"prehistoric\" came into general use in the 1860s, and it was not until around the turn of the twentieth century that saw the emergence of prehistoric fiction in English. In his 1838 tale, \"Silence,\" however, Edgar Allan Poe had presented a form of prehistoric narrative by creating a fictional setting of West Central Africa. While casting new light on prehistoric fiction by discovering the tale's unexplored potential, this study finds itself associated with philosophy with special reference to the French-Continental philosophers Jacques Derrida and Quentin Meillassoux. Their deconstructive/speculative philosophies serve to reveal what has been unexplored in \"Silence,\" hence allowing an understanding of how widely open it is to what belongs outside of history and humanity. An attempt is ultimately made to demonstrate that the tale's potentiality lies in its capacity to generate fresh perspectives not only on prehistory but also on pre-humanity and even on post-humanity.

Yet one question arises in Stevens's treatment: what race are these \"[s]upple and turbulent\" men? Eric Lott notes, \"The historical fact of white men literally assuming a 'black' self, the eternal and predictable return of the racial signifier of blackface, is another matter entirely; and I would argue that it began and continues to occur when the lines of 'race' appear both intractable and obstructive, when there emerges a collective desire (conscious or not) to bridge a gulf that is, however, perceived to separate the races absolutely\" (\"White\" 475). The primitive viewed as a mode of blackface construction becomes less a coherent identity formation than a site of ongoing anxieties, terrors, and desires regarding race and gender identities. Evolutionary beliefs suggested that to access one's primitive nature was to channel an earlier, manly state diminished by years of acculturation.

[...]I call it the question and use it as a learning tool. When I think of how that student tried to imprison me with her frame of understanding, her own practice of colourism, internalized racism, because of my skin, hair, and idiolect, I confront the seeming permanence of racism in our reality. Even though I am the Sterling Goodman Professor of English at the University of Georgia, the oldest state-chartered public university in the United States of America (1785), I have not forgotten for one second that I am Black. Why else would J.K. Rowling support the blacking-up of the series' feminist icon Hermione Granger, whose race is never defined in the Harry Potter books, despite making many millions of dollars in royalties and film profits with a white actress (Emma Watson) playing the character in the films?

Mars has been perfectly situated to become both a locus of scientific discovery and a socially constructed artefact, a physical object in the night sky and a metaphoric mirror-Earth. Often, what we might call ‘real’ Mars has been barely visible through layers of hopes, dreams, anxieties and desires. This other world has served as a useful setting for commentaries on our present, rehearsals of our history and projections of our future. According to one historian of the Red Planet, there was a ‘lull in the debate [concerning an inhabited Mars, usually with a global network of engineered canals] between 1914 and 1925’ (Markley 2005: 114), during World War One and its aftermath. Long associated with warfare and bloodshed, Mars continued serving as Earth’s extraterrestrial looking glass during this period. This article seeks to fill part of the alleged gap in the primary literature by examining Frederick Philip Grove’s almost forgotten 1915 poem ‘The Legend of the Planet Mars’, while sketching its wider historical contexts

Using a question posed by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a launching point, this essay asks whether speculative fiction has value to African and African diasporic Literature, and uses the novella Binti by Nnedi Okorafor and the short story “Branded” by Lauren Beukes to explore the issue.

The human hunger for mythology lives on in our entertainment; Captain America is a remarkable 20th century example of the hero’s journey in that he was forged during WWII and subsequently reborn as a man-out-of-time. Today he remains an important symbol within our culture, the living embodiment of an imagined past, a bridge between the popular understanding of the Greatest Generation and the hopeful horizon of progressive humanity (Coates, “Why I’m Writing”). At the character’s core, there are two mechanisms that explain his appeal, symbolism and longevity: the classical death-and-resurrection theme and his continuous link to World War II.

With roots that can be traced back to the pulp and dime novels of the past, comics are a uniquely American creation that interconnect word with image and allow for multiple ways of reading and interpreting, which results in multiple ways of knowing and understanding. As comics continue to grow in popularity in mainstream culture, it is important to consider the messages being interpreted from these texts by readers. This qualitative study explored how female adolescent readers experience and understand their gender through the comics of the popular character Harley Quinn (of DC Comics) and how Quinn is seen as performing gender within her stories. Using the lenses of critical literacy, feminism, and transactional theory, this investigation was conducted using content analysis of texts and language-in-use analysis of transcripts from interviews and a readers response meeting with five adolescent females. The data collected indicated gender to be more influential on Quinn's characterization and storylines than anything else, including her superpowered nature; and participants saw Quinn as enacting the socially recognizable identity of “American Female.” Overall, the results showed Quinn to be more in alignment with cultural gender norms than not and, thus, she reinforced existing hegemonic patriarchal narratives seen in comics. It is only through recognition and knowledge of what exists in comic texts that readers can demand changes with these narratives and promote gender equity.

The last to be published in his lifetime was liana ofGathol in 1948. Since boyhood, Joe Lansdale has followed Carter's example, metaphorically, and, in a sense, literally as well. A lot of that seeped into The Magic Wagon-the old and the new, the coming of change, the reality of heroes.\" [...]it seems, of late, the literary establishment is catching up with him.

Apart from working as a cartoonist and book illustrator, Thé Tjong-Khing taught at the Rietveld Academy. In 1966, he designed the cover and the illustrations for Micky en de vreemde rovers (Micky and the strange robbers) by Thea Beckman, and then he gradually turned from being a cartoon artist into a children's book illustrator-sometimes clinging strongly to other drawing styles, like a chameleon, and other times flirting with them, whereby the work, despite this or because of this, always comes across as recognizably Thé Tjong-Khing in its totality.