FREE │90 minutes

Superheroes bring to mind caped crusaders such as Superman, Batman, or Captain America. The more gender attuned foreground Wonderwoman among other avatars. Those looking eastwards might highlight Japanese characters from Manga. What about other cultural repertoires of intergalactic superhero/ines? How do other young people engage with illustrations, storytelling and imaginaries of superheroism?

At this event, we consider these questions with a film on South Asian superhero comics, and young people’s social and imaginative worlds to do with special powers, phenomenal technologies, justice, vengeance, geopolitics, and gender. We will be joined by an interdisciplinary panel with experts on superheroism followed by a Q&A with audience.

The event is followed by a linked drama, Terror, by Sohaya Visions on Faraz Hossain’s heroic stand against violent militants in a Bangladeshi café in July 2016.

Also the event draws upon anthropological and comic studies research that informs our book, Adventure Comics and Youth Cultures in India (Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal, Routledge).

Panelists include Ashwani Sharma, Richard Reynolds, Raminder Kaur (with virtual connection to Saif Eqbal) and chaired by Rez Kabir.

The film to be premiered in November, Dishoom India, is made by Tarun Jasani and Raminder Kaur.

The event is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Festival of Social Science, and supported by A Season of Bangla Drama, Raj Comics, Diamond Comics, Sohaya Visions, Inward Arts, Mukul and Ghetto Tigers, Tamarind Theatre, University of Sussex Asia Centre, Megan McMichael at University of Sussex, and Pinter Studio at QMUL.