Black (Super)Power Fantasies: Blade the Vampire Hunter and the Black Male Superhero Figure‍

In this lecture, Dr. Darieck Scott will discuss the monstrous and the sexual dimensions of black male imagery in superhero comics, focusing on the character “Blade”—also the main character of a trio of Hollywood action movies starring Wesley Snipes. He will discuss how comic book male superheroes’ extreme hyper-masculinity becomes uncomfortably exaggerated when the superhero is a black male, a figure already over determined in Western cultures as an exemplar of extreme, out of control physicality.

‍Darieck Scott earned his Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University, and an M.A. in African American Studies and a J.D. from Yale. Before coming to UC Berkeley he taught in the English departments of the University of Texas at Austin, and UC Santa Barbara. His teaching and research interests include: 20th and 21st century African American literature; creative writing; queer theory, and LGBTQ studies; race, gender and sexuality in fantasy, science fiction, and comic books.

FREE with MoAD Admission