- From Superman® and Spider-Man®, to The Avengers® and The Hulk® and beyond, who are these heroes?
May 06th, 2015: For the first time ever, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and edX offers the opportunity to go into the collection and see why superheroes are a dominant cultural force in today’s world.Encompassing the evolution of superheroes from folklore and myth, across all cultures and religions, at last, fans, students and seekers of knowledge have the opportunity to all their answers.
With an effort of just 1-2 hours per week for 5 weeks, this course shall explore superheroes from when they first arose in 1938 and experienced what we refer to as their “Golden Age” during World War II to finally how the comic books became “cool” and the basis for blockbuster movies, hit TV series, top-selling video games, and acclaimed animation, while also impacting fashion and style- and even the moral and ethical codes of children- around the globe.
The course starts on May 5, 2015 and one can enrol here: https://www.edx.org/course/rise-superheroes-impact-pop-culture-smithsonianx-popx1-1x#!
Taught by Stan Lee, who was one of the creators of the modern superhero template and Michael Uslan, executive producer of top grossing, award winning movies, including The Dark Knight series, Lego® Movie, the animated Batman films and Batman® VS Superman, the course aims to apply historical examples to create superheroes for the present day by studying how current globalization and diversity of the next generation of superheroes impacts our storytelling across all mediums.