Anna Peppard, Postdoctoral Fellow from Brock University, joins us to discuss the historical controversy and contemporary relevance of superhero sexuality. Dr. Peppard will demonstrate how the simultaneous presence and absence of sexuality within superhero comics, movies, television shows, and video games is central to the superhero genre’s longevity, adaptability, and current popularity, and argue that superheroes possess a special—albeit underutilized—ability to represent diverse and potentially subversive sexual fantasies.

Bio
Anna Peppart profileAnna F. Peppard is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Brock University. She has studied representations of race, gender, and sexuality within a variety of popular media genres and forms, including action-adventure television, superhero comics, professional wrestling, and sports culture. Her writing has appeared in Canadian Review of American Studies, International Journal of Comic Art, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Journal of Fashion Studies, Feminist Media Histories, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics, Literary Hub, The Walrus, the anthology Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe, and the forthcoming anthology WWE: Professional Wrestling in the Digital Age. She is a regular contributor to the podcast Three Panel Contrast.