Eric Berlatsky

Eric Berlatsky is Professor of English, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the Dorothy F Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, and Director of the Ph. D. Program in Comparative Studies. He frequently researches and teaches around the fringes of SF/Fantasy, depending upon how one defines these genres. In recent years, he has been primarily a Comics Studies scholar, including work on “literary” comics (not typically associated with SF) and superhero comics (which arise out of the pulp SF tradition). He has recently co-edited a collection of essays on mixed-race superheroes, cleverly titled Mixed-Race Superheroes (Rutgers UP, 2021), with FAU colleague Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. He also edited a collection of interviews with comics auteur Alan Moore, Alan Moore: Conversations (UP of Mississippi, 2012). He also has a variety of publications on comics and superheroes in journals and edited collections. His non-SF research profile includes publications on (post)modernism, modern and contemporary British and Anglophone literature, and other stuff .

Undergraduate SF Courses (Courses with SF Content):

LIT 4001 The Graphic Novel (one unit on superheroes)
AML 4930 American Comics and Graphic Novels (one unit on superheroes)
AML 4930 Superhero Comics
LIT 4930 Spider-Man at 60
ENL 3132 20th Century British Novel (included Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on one occasion)
ENL 4273 20th Century British Literature (included V for Vendetta on one occasion)

Graduate SF Courses

LIT 5009 Comics and Graphic Novels (one unit on superheroes)
LIT 6932 Superhero Comics
LIT 6932 Superheroes (includes films and television, in addition to comics)
LIT 6936/6934 Time and Space in Modern and Contemporary Literature: (includes modernist/postmodernist experiments with temporal and spatial presentation, but also includes things like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, the films 12 Monkeys, La Jetée, and Primer and other texts that might be considered SF if one is flexible about the definition)

Select SF Books

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins, eds. Mixed-Race Superheroes. Rutgers UP, 2021. Edited Collection.

Alan Moore: Conversations (editor, author of introduction and chronology). University of Mississippi Press, 2012. Edited Collection.

Select SF Articles & Book Chapters

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “Introduction.” Mixed-Race Superheroes, edited by Sika A. Dagbovie- Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky, Rutgers UP, 2021, pp. 1-24.

“Flash of Two Races: Incest, Miscegenation and the Mixed-Race Superhero in The Flash Comics and Television Show.” Mixed-Race Superheroes, edited by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins and Eric L. Berlatsky, Rutgers UP, 2021, pp. 81-102.

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “The Mixed-Race Child Within: Psychoanalyzing Race, Trauma, Vermin and Spider-Man.’” American Imago, vol. 77, no. 3, 2020, pp. 569-601. Special issue on Comics and Psychoanalysis, edited by Vera Camden.

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “‘The Only Nerdy Pakistani-American-Slash-Inhuman in the Entire Universe’: Postracialism and Politics in the New Ms. Marvel.” Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal, edited by Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid, U of Mississippi P, 2020, pp. 65-88.

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “The Whiteness of the Whale and the Darkness of the Dinosaur: The Africanist Presence in Superhero Comics from Black Lightning to Moon Girl.” Unstable Masks: Whiteness and American Superhero Comics, edited by Sean Guynes and P. Martin Lund, Ohio State UP, 2020, pp. 38-56.

“Between Supermen: Homosociality, Misogyny, and Triangular Desire in the Earliest Superman Stories.” Comics Forum, edited by Ian Hague, 11 April 2013.

“Time and Free Will: Bergson, Modernism, Superheroes, and Watchmen.” Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism, edited by S. E. Gontarski, Laci Mattison, and Paul Ardoin, Bloomsbury, 2012, pp. 256-80.

Select SF Book Reviews, Encyclopedia Entries, Etc.

Rev. of Jamie Brassett and Richard Reynolds. Superheroes and Excess: A Philosophical Adventure. Routledge, 2022. International Journal of Comic Art.

Rev. of Daniel Stein. Authorizing Superhero Comics: On the Evolution of a Popular Serial Genre. Ohio State UP, 2021. International Journal of Comic Art, vol. 23, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2021, pp. 551-56.

Rev. of Marc Singer. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies. U of Texas P, 2018. Imagetext, vol. 11, no. 2, 2020, 14 pars.

“Sunshine Superman.” Rev. of Ian S. Garlington. The Adventures of Acidman: Psychedelics and the Evolution of Consciousness in Science Fiction and Superhero Comics from the 1960s Onward. Eihosha, 2016. Science Fiction Studies, no. 45, 2018, pp. 608-12.

Rev. of Frances Gateward and John Jennings. The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Rutgers UP, 2016. Imagetext, vol. 9, no. 2, 2017, 13 pars.

“Form and Function.” Rev. of Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon, eds. From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative. Walter de Gruyter, 2013. Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art, vol. 2, no. 1, Nov. 2015, pp. 78-84.

Rev. of Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer, and Kent Worcester, eds. The Superhero Reader. UP of Mississippi, 2013. Imagetext, vol. 8, no. 2, 2015, 8 pars.

“The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 4: 1995-present, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1598-1600.

“Lost Girls.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 4: 1995-present, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1611-13.

“Love and Rockets.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 3: 1980-1995, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1128-30.

“Moore, Alan [III].” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 3: 1980-1995, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1156-60.

"Moore, Alan [IV]." Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 4: 1995-present, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1651-55.

“Sandman.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 3: 1980-1995, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1212-14.

“V for Vendetta.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 3: 1980-1995, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1289-91.

“Watchmen.” Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas, vol. 3: 1980-1995, edited by M. Keith Booker, Greenwood P, 2014, pp. 1294-97.

Rev. of Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, eds. Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium. University of Mississippi P, 2004. Imagetext, vol. 6, no. 2, 2012, 12 pars.

Rev. of Ben Schwartz, ed. Best American Comics Criticism. Fantagraphics Books, 2010. Imagetext, vol. 6, no. 2, 2012, 14 pars.

Baker, Bill. “Comics: Editor Eric Berlatsky Discusses His Alan Moore: Conversations Anthology.” The Morton Report, 26 Oct. 2011.

___. “Comics: Editor Eric Berlatsky Discusses His Alan Moore: Conversations Anthology, part 2.” The Morton Report , 28 Oct. 2011.

Rev. of Annalisa Di Liddo. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel. University of Mississippi P, 2009. Imagetext, vol. 5, no. 4, 2009, 12 pars.

“The Pageantry of the Past and the Reflection of the Present: History, ‘Reality,’ and Feminism in Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts.” The Twelfth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf Proceedings: Across the Generations, edited by Merry Pawlowski and Eileen Barrett, The Center for Virginia Woolf Studies, 2003, pp. 170-76.

Select SF-Related Invited Talks and Conference Presentations

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “Mixed Race Superheroes.” Critical Mixed-Race Studies Conference, February 2022.

with Sika Dagbovie-Mullins. “The Mixed-Race Child Within: Psychoanalyzing Race, Trauma, Vermin, and Spider-Man.” Panel on Comics on the Couch: Comics and Psychoanalysis. Modern Language Association Conference, Jan. 2021.

“Vermin, the Seduction Theory, and the Psychology of Race in ‘Spider-Man: The Child Within.’” Michigan State University Comics Forum, Feb. 2020.

“Flash of Two Races: Incest, Miscegenation, and the Mixed-Race Superhero in The Flash Comics and Television Show.” Michigan State University Comics Forum, Feb. 2019.

“The Whiteness of the Whale: Black Lightning and Semiotic Reversal.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, 29 March 2018.

“Kryptonians Keep Kosher: Jews and Comic-Book Superheroes," first presented as an FAU Distinguished Lecture (2018).

“‘The Only Nerdy Pakistani-American-Slash-Inhuman in the Entire Universe’: Post-Racialism and Politics in the New Ms. Marvel. (Part 2).” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, March 2016.

“We Are Who We Choose To Be”: Sadistic Choices, Forking Paths, and the Rejection of Narrative and Social Progress in Superhero Comics and Film.” University of Florida Comics Conference, 10-12 April 2015.

“Vigilantism, Superheroes, and Anti-Heroes” (community presentation at public library, 2015).

“‘They Are Real Beyond Refute’: Images of Fictionality in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell.” International Conference on Narrative, April 2011.

“Time and Free Will: Agency in Four Dimensions in the Graphic Novels of Alan Moore.” Center for Body, Mind, and Culture Coffee Colloquium, 23 March 2010.