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Re-Constructing the Man of Steel

Superman 1938–1941, Jewish American History, and the Invention of the Jewish–Comics Connection

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Martin Lund

    1. CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn, USA

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  • Presents compelling encouragement to readers to reconsider the application of contemporary reading of the Jewish experience onto comics in the United States
  • Draws attention to the imprecision and incorrect assumptions surrounding the emergence of comic culture in the 1930s and 1940s
  • Offers up in-depth readings, investigations, and contextualization of the last thirty years of scholarship in comics

Part of the book series: Contemporary Religion and Popular Culture (CRPC)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Who Is Superman?

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 1-17

  3. Introducing the Jewish–Comics Connection

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 19-42

  4. The Jewish–Comics Connection Reconsidered

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 43-67

  5. And So Begins a Startling Adventure

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 69-82

  6. Superman, Champion of the Oppressed

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 83-98

  7. Patriot Number One

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 99-123

  8. The Hearts and Minds of Supermen

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 125-139

  9. Superman and the Displacement of Race

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 141-156

  10. Of Men and Superman

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 157-173

  11. Forgotten and Remembered Supermen

    • Martin Lund
    Pages 175-188

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 189-215
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Keywords

About this book

In this book, Martin Lund challenges contemporary claims about the original Superman’s supposed Jewishness and offers a critical re-reading of the earliest Superman comics. Engaging in critical dialogue with extant writing on the subject, Lund argues that much of recent popular and scholarly writing on Superman as a Jewish character is a product of the ethnic revival, rather than critical investigations of the past, and as such does not stand up to historical scrutiny. In place of these readings, this book offers a new understanding of the Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the mid-1930s, presenting him as an authentically Jewish American character in his own time, for good and ill.


On the way to this conclusion, this book questions many popular claims about Superman, including that he is a golem, a Moses-figure, or has a Hebrew name. In place of such notions, Lund offers contextual readings of Superman as he first appeared, touchingon, among other ideas, Jewish American affinities with the Roosevelt White House, the whitening effects of popular culture, Jewish gender stereotypes, and the struggles faced by Jewish Americans during the historical peak of American anti-Semitism.


In this book, Lund makes a call to stem the diffusion of myth into accepted truth, stressing the importance of contextualizing the Jewish heritage of the creators of Superman. By critically taking into account historical understandings of Jewishness and the comics’ creative contexts, this book challenges reigning assumptions about Superman and other superheroes’ cultural roles, not only for the benefit of Jewish studies, but for American, Cultural, and Comics studies as a whole.





Authors and Affiliations

  • CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn, USA

    Martin Lund

About the author

Martin Lund is a Swedish Research Council International Postdoc at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He is also a Visiting Research Scholar at the Gotham Center for New York City History, CUNY Graduate Center, USA. He has a PhD in Jewish Studies from Lund University, as well as a Masters in Theology, History and Anthropology of Religion, also from Lund University, Sweden. His publications include articles and book chapters on subjects such as comics and religion, identity, race, and place.

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