Riddle Me This, Batman!

From his first comic-book appearance in 1939 through his many incarnations on the big screen, the archetypal superhero known as The Batman has never been far from the American consciousness. The character shaped the way we read comics and graphic novels, view motion pictures, and analyze the motifs of the Hero, the Anti-Hero and the Villain. He has also captured the scholarly imagination, telling us much about our society and ourselves. These essays examine how Batman is both the canvas on which our cultural identity is painted, and the Eternal Other that informs our own journeys of understanding. Questions relating to a wide range of disciplines—philosophy, literature, psychology, pop culture, and more—are thoroughly and entertainingly explored, in a manner that will appeal both to scholars and to fans of the Caped Crusader alike.

Kevin K. Durand is the dean of academics at the LISA Academy College Preparatory School in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has published broadly in philosophy, religion, and ethics.
Mary K. Leigh is a doctoral academy fellow at the University of Arkansas.

Edited by Kevin K. Durand and Mary K. Leigh
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 228
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4629-2
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8731-8
Imprint: McFarland

Preface
MARY K. LEIGH      1
Introduction: What Has Adorno to Do with Gotham?
KEVIN K. DURAND      3

Part One: The Ethics and Anarchy of Batman
1. Virtue in Gotham: Aristotle’s Batman
MARY K. LEIGH      17
2. The Dark Knight Errant: Power and Authority in Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
CHRISTOPHER BUNDRICK      24
3. Why Adam West Matters: Camp and Classical Virtue
KEVIN K. DURAND      41
4. Dark Knight, White Knight, and the King of Anarchy
STEPHANIE CARMICHAEL      54
5. Introducing a Little Anarchy: The Dark Knight and Power Structures on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
SUDIPTO SANYAL      70

Part Two: Batman and Literary Theory
6. Batman’s Canon: Hybridity and the Interpretation of the Superhero
KEVIN K. DURAND      81
7. Seminar on the Purloined Batarang: Batman and Lacan
MITCH FRYE      93
8. Queer Matters in The Dark Knight Returns: Why We Insist on a Sexual Identity for Batman
JENÉE WILDE      104
9. The Hero We Read: The Dark Knight, Popular Allegoresis, and Blockbuster Ideology
ANDREA COMISKEY      124
10. Rolling the Boulder in Gotham
RANDY DUNCAN      147
11. Figuration of the Superheroic Revolutionary: The Dark Knight of Negation
D. T. KOFOED      156

Part Three: Batman and Beyond
12. “One May Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain”: Grim Humor and the Warrior Ethos
MELANIE WILSON      169
13. “And Doesn’t All the World Love a Clown?”: Finding the Joker and the Representation of His Evil
MICHAEL SMITH      187
14. Call It (Friendo): Flipism and Folklore in No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight
MATTHEW FOTIS      201

About the Contributors      219
Index      221