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Klock, Geoff. "X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism." Reconstruction 4. 3 2004. Accessed 31Jul. 2009. <http://reconstruction.e ... es/043/Klock/Klock.html>. 
Added by: joachim (7/20/09, 1:33 AM)   Last edited by: joachim (7/31/09, 1:09 AM)
Resource type: Web Article
Language: en: English
Peer reviewed
BibTeX citation key: Klock2004a
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Categories: General
Keywords: "X-Men", Seriality, Superhero, USA
Creators: Klock
Collection: Reconstruction
Views: 2/953
Attachments   URLs   http://reconstruct ... 3/Klock/Klock.html
Abstract
Continuing his work in »How to Read Superhero Comics and Why« Geoff Klock, in »X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism«, argues that two writers of the superhero comic book »the X-Men« suggest a whole new definition of the Post-Human, an alternative to what Hayles, Haraway, and Moravec have to offer. He begins by connecting a moment in Mark Millar's »Ultimate X-Men« with a passage in Ralph Waldo Emerson: an ancient heretical second-century sect of Christianity called Gnosticism is the common factor. Klock argues that Millar's X-Men incorporates Gnosticism's radical notion of subjectivity into its Post-Human narrative, but not without cost: Millar's depiction of team leader Professor X shows the ways in which Post-Humanism, particularly in the realm of ethics, easily veers into the inhuman. This pessimistic Post-Humanism, which is held out above every alternative, is reflected in the serial nature of the superhero comic book series itself, in which decades pass without the book's heroes being able to significantly effect their world for the better. In the paper's conclusion, Klock examines Grant Morrison's »New X-Men« story »Assault on Weapon Plus« as a Gnostic Post-Human allegory that suggests that our inevitable evolution into the Post-Human will yield something darker than, say, a cyber-utopia or a collective robot heaven.
Added by: joachim  Last edited by: joachim
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