Making Heroes: From Warriors to C21st Citizens

Catalog description

In this course, we discover what it means to be a hero. We begin by exploring our own notions of the heroic and modern notions of the superhero before travelling back to the past, to a time when today's legends, myths and social structures were under construction in the border society between Arabs, Christians and Jews in medieval Iberia. Through role-playing, reflection and discussion, literature and history, film, art and music, we explore attitudes to war, violence, chivalry, masculinity, femininity, exile, borders, minorities, leadership, virtues and emotions. We search for models of heroism at a time of crisis, religious conflict and war among adventurers, kings, powerful women, warriors, beggars, pilgrims, and potential saints, while aiming to answer the questions “What made a hero in the past?”, “How has the idea of the hero developed across time?”, “What, if anything, makes a hero today?”.