Breakout Session: Great Caesar's Ghost: Superhero Comics in Historical Perspective
Location
Witter's Conference Room (4440 Booth Library)
Start Date
27-9-2025 10:00 AM
End Date
27-9-2025 10:55 AM
Description
Superheroes are metaphors about the soaring human spirit, born of necessity in times of powerlessness and despair like the Great Depression. Their function is the same as the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies from that era — to enable the downtrodden to fantasize about defying gravity in fancy duds. I'll discuss their history in popular culture and myth.
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Breakout Session: Great Caesar's Ghost: Superhero Comics in Historical Perspective
Witter's Conference Room (4440 Booth Library)
Superheroes are metaphors about the soaring human spirit, born of necessity in times of powerlessness and despair like the Great Depression. Their function is the same as the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies from that era — to enable the downtrodden to fantasize about defying gravity in fancy duds. I'll discuss their history in popular culture and myth.
Comments
Dr. Dan Hagen
Dan Hagen graduated from EIU in 1977 with a double major in philosophy and journalism, and later taught journalism at EIU for more than a decade. In between, he worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, and as a freelance writer for various national magazines, specializing in popular culture. In the 1970s, Dr. Hagen wrote several articles for Marvel Comics, and he later interviewed Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and many other central figures from comics, TV and movies. He has five blogs, three of which focus on comics.