Looking to learn about the world of superheroes? Stan Lee is teaching a free online course called "The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture". Are you ready to go back to school?

CNET reports the course is being offered through EdX, an online learning platform created by MIT and Harvard that features free courses from top universities on a huge range of topics:

The course, titled "The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture," promises to examine these and other questions. Joining Lee will be experts from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and Michael Ulsan, executive producer of "Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice," "The Lego Movie" and "The Dark Knight Trilogy." His son David Ulsan, who started as an intern at D.C. Comics before helping his father bring his legendary movies to life, will also help lead the course."

The course will explore the following "questions":

Why did superheroes first arise in 1938 and experience what we refer to as their “Golden Age” during World War II?

Why did the superhero genre ebb and flow in popularity over the decades?

How have comic books, published weekly since the mid-1930’s, mirrored a changing American society, reflecting our mores, slang, fads, biases and prejudices?

Why was the comic book industry nearly shut down in the McCarthy Era of the 1950’s?

How did our superheroes become super-villains in the eyes of the government, clergy, educators, and parents of the mid-20th Century?

When and how did comic books become acceptable again, and eventually become valid teaching tools in universities and schools?

When and how did comic book artwork become accepted as a true American art form as indigenous to this country as jazz?

Finally, when and how did comic books become “cool” and the basis for blockbuster movies, hit TV series, top-selling video games, and acclaimed animation, while also impacting fashion and style- and even the moral and ethical codes of children- around the globe?"

 

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