On Saturday, November 18, 2017, the American Academy of Religion annual conference hosted the panel “Responses to Muslim Superheroes,” including presentations by Elizabeth Coody, Mohamed Hassan, Constance Kassor, and Aaron Ricker, with Scott Gardner as presider and A. David Lewis as respondent. Here are their presentations in their entirety from that morning session.
In just under a span of 10 minutes, S&S’s own A. David Lewis managed to address a span of issues with “Here & Now” co-host Robin Young on a recent WBUR broadcast. Touching on Ms. Marvel, the upcoming Muslim Superheroes essay collection, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther and the Crew, and his own Kismet, Man of Fate, Lewis blitzed Young with a full update of many topics at the intersection of the comic book medium and Islam. And, he vouched for the surprising brilliance of the new Flintsones series, to boot!
Additionally, WBUR provided this video clip of Lewis going into further explanation of his charity work for Syria.
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[With the apparent close of the IslamiCommentary site from the Duke University Islamic Studies Center (DISC), Sacred and Sequential is cataloging a number of their articles pertinent to comics and Islam for continued online access. The following, if altered at all, has been edited only minimally for clarity and/or ]
by A. DAVID LEWIS for ISLAMiCommentary on MARCH 20, 2014:
Kismet may not be the first Muslim superhero, but he may be the first worthy of that title. Some buffoonish characters preceded him, and other orientalist caricatures appeared on earlier comics pages, but without either superpowers or other key elements of the genre. This month, on the seventieth anniversary of his first appearance, it’s a fitting time to reintroduce and recognize Kismet, “Man of Fate;” the first genuine Muslim superhero.
The superhero as a genre found its first real traction, famously, in the pages of Action Comics #1; the 1938 debut of Superman. Like Kismet, the character of Superman had his antecedents, prior masked men and super-powered protagonists either on comics pages, on radio, or in print pulp novels. But it wasn’t until Superman crystallized the conventions of a) being driven by a quest for justice and defense of the weak; b) demonstrating abilities beyond that of a normal person; and c) having a costume and secret identity; that the superhero genre became clearly recognized.
1944 — six years after Superman — wave upon wave of superhero characters, with varying success, had been pouring into audience’s hands.
A year or two ago, S&S Founding Members David McConeghy and A. David Lewis sat down to discuss the latter’s new book, American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife for The Religious Studies Project. Since that time, The Superhero Afterlife went on to be nominated for an Eisner Award, and McConeghy has switched American coasts, moving from West to East.
However, at around the same time, RSP’s own David G. Robertson penned this incisive response to the subject of their conversation, which, in light of 2017 politics and recent criticism of mainstream superhero storylines, now feels remarkably prescient.
Therefore it is vitally important for a non-essentialist and non-elitist study of religion that we consider comics in their cultural and historical context. Without that, structural analyses may be merely repeating hegemonic categories and structures of power.
Robertson is a Co-founding Editor of the Religious Studies Project and a committee member of the British Association for the Study of Religion. For his full CV, see his Academia page or personal blog here.
In advance of the Spring 2017 release of Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam, and Representation, Mizan has been featuring a series of related articles on its Mizan Pop site. The first, dated this past summer, provides an overview of that category’s — “Muslim superheroes” — history.
The study of Muslim superheroes has only quite recently begun in earnest, with scholars like comics historian Fredrik Strömberg and French scholar Shirin Edwin publishing some of the first scholarly articles in this specific field in 2011. There has been a small but steady stream of work on the subject since. Regrettably, while some of this scholarship is of high quality, it has, to date, been scattered over multiple disciplines, and new work has only rarely been in dialogue with what has come before.
In theory, Muslim Superheroes, edited by A. David Lewis and Martin Lund, is intended to further that dialogue and provide stronger connective tissue between the disciplines on the topic. Their promotional Facebook page features links to some of that “steady stream on the subject” and a preview of the book jacket (featuring art by Qahera artist Deena Mohamed).
