Nicholas Yanes

How has President Barack Obama been represented in popular culture? He is more than the United States’ 44th president, but he is also a lens through which we can examine politics, art, comics, and music in local, national, and international contexts. The all-new essays and interviews in this collection focus on the buildup to the 2008 election as well as Obama’s first year as president, a brief historical moment in which "Obama" was synonymous with possibility. The contributors represent a… Show more

How has President Barack Obama been represented in popular culture? He is more than the United States’ 44th president, but he is also a lens through which we can examine politics, art, comics, and music in local, national, and international contexts. The all-new essays and interviews in this collection focus on the buildup to the 2008 election as well as Obama’s first year as president, a brief historical moment in which "Obama" was synonymous with possibility. The contributors represent a variety of scholarly standpoints, each adding a unique perspective on Obama’s relationship to popular culture. Show less

My contribution to this essay collection, "A History of African American Religion in Comic Books," is an overview of how African American Religion and Spirituality has appeared in US comic books. The goal of this piece is to show that while American comic books have been largely created and control by White and Jewish Americans, African American beliefs had significantly permeated US society as early as the 1930s.

An analysis of how the science fiction shows, "Battlestar Galactica" and "Stargate SG-1", address post-9/11 politics.

"The vast majority of books dealing with posthumanism and cyborgs tend to be works by science fiction fans using academic terminology in order to legitimate their intellectual interests. Far too often, a text that promises to look at the impact of posthumanism on modern society simply focuses on characters like Data, Seven of Nine, the Terminator, or any other science fiction character popular at the time. These works are typically underwhelming because they present analyses that are not only… Show more

"The vast majority of books dealing with posthumanism and cyborgs tend to be works by science fiction fans using academic terminology in order to legitimate their intellectual interests. Far too often, a text that promises to look at the impact of posthumanism on modern society simply focuses on characters like Data, Seven of Nine, the Terminator, or any other science fiction character popular at the time. These works are typically underwhelming because they present analyses that are not only completely obvious, but localized to ideas of cybernetics, robotics, or genetic engineering. Moreover, many of these manuscripts use cultural theory in such superficial manners that it seems the author(s) has a list of requirements that they simply check off as opposed to genuinely placing the theories they cite in discussion with their ideas. It is for those reasons that Kim Toffoletti's Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body shines.'

For the rest of the review please go to the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies Show less

We do not have to become heroes overnight….Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down….The thing always to remember…you must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (Goodwin p. 95)

Captain America is unquestionably the most patriotic comic book character. Captain America’s first appearance was so monumental, that he, as Roy Thomas writes, “spawn[ed] more… Show more

We do not have to become heroes overnight….Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down….The thing always to remember…you must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (Goodwin p. 95)

Captain America is unquestionably the most patriotic comic book character. Captain America’s first appearance was so monumental, that he, as Roy Thomas writes, “spawn[ed] more imitators than any hero but Superman himself” (Thomas p. 5). Captain America - “A flag with rock hard abs” (The Colbert Report), as he was once described by Stephen Colbert – quickly became a top selling character and the meridian example of pro-war attitudes appearing in World War II era comic books. However, to fully understand Captain America’s ascension to the avatar of US patriotism during World War II, it is important to know World War II propaganda reflected more than pro-American sentiment. Comic books uniquely pushed for the US to enter the war because the Jewish Americans who created the American Comic Book industry had personal stakes in the success US victory in the war and understood that patriotism was synonymous with sacrifice.
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