Power and Marginalization in Popular Culture

The Oppressed in Six Television and Literature Media Franchises

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About the Book

In many pop culture texts, “monsters” can be read as metaphors for marginalized Others in U.S. culture. This book applies the philosophical lens of Michel Foucault’s normalizing and bio-powers to zombies, vampires, magicians, genetic mutants and others, asking whether these stories of apparent liberation really are so. Exploring a single theme in depth across a series of pop culture texts, this book encourages a radical new understanding of liberation narratives and of political activism as a mechanism of social change.

About the Author(s)

Lisa A. King is an associate professor of philosophy at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin.

Bibliographic Details

Lisa A. King

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 172
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2020
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6867-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4016-7
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments viii
Preface 1
Introduction: Zombies, Vampires and Mutants, Oh My! 3
1. The Walking Dead as Biopolitical Nightmare 25
2. Feminist Post-Structuralism, Jessica Jones and Rape Culture 47
3. Normalizing and Bio-Powers in the World of Sookie Stackhouse and True Blood 65
4. The X-Men and Racialization as Bio-Political Normalization 85
5. Difference as Intersectional in the Harry Potter Universe 104
6. Sense8, Nationhood and Global Power Relations 122
Conclusion: Telling Stories, Transforming Worlds 140
Chapter Notes 149
Works Cited 159
Index 163