Heroines & Heroes (German 285 / Comp Lit 351), University of Washington, Fall 2020
Heroines & Heroes (German 285 / Comp Lit 351), University of Washington, Fall 2020
What makes a hero? Why do we need heroes? What happens when heroes fail us? In this course, we explore the characteristics of heroes in literature and film from antiquity to today. The formal and psychological structures of heroism will be analyzed under the rubrics of admiration, identification, seduction, and disillusionment. We will interrogate how both genre and gender impact the representation of heroes, and examine characters such as Ms. Marvel, Achilles, Odysseus, Antigone, Jesus, Satan, the Buddha, Zarathustra, Winnetou, Wonder Woman (and other Amazonian Warrior Princesses), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer .
Learning Objectives
By the end of the quarter, you will be able to:
Critique heroes according to the rubrics of admiration, identification, and disillusionment.
Describe the important features of different modes of creative production for representing heroes: epic poetry; rhetoric; drama; melodrama; narrative; comics; and film.
Gain practical experience in collaborative creative production of heroic fiction in two of these genres.
Identify the characteristics and functions of heroes in Ancient Greek culture and explain the transformations of heroes in later European and American cultures.
Assess the impact of representing minority heroes in terms of colonialism, orientalism, cultural appropriation, and gender dynamics.
Critically examine your own evolving relationship with heroic models from childhood onwards.