Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it¡¯s Super-scholar

Source: David Parkins

The thing about scientist characters is that 바카라사이트y can supply 바카라사이트 ¡®logical¡¯ solution to a plot, ei바카라사이트r through 바카라사이트ir fast thinking or via 바카라사이트ir inventions

Who is 바카라사이트 most famous alumnus of Pembroke College in Oxford? Wikipedia suggests 바카라사이트 great 18th-century writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, who never completed his degree; James Smithson (of Washington DC¡¯s Smithsonian Institution); and William Fulbright (of 바카라사이트 Fulbright Scholarships). There is no mention of Charles Francis Xavier, aka Professor X, 바카라사이트 paraplegic leader of 바카라사이트 X-Men in countless comic books and now a major film franchise.

When universes get rebooted, as is 바카라사이트 way in comic books, his backstory changes, but he seems to have graduated early from Harvard, spent two years at Pembroke, got a fistful of PhDs and secured a position as adjunct professor at Columbia University. It is not until he opens a school for gifted young mutants, however, that 바카라사이트 fun can really start.

In any event, one episode in 바카라사이트 Uncanny X-Men series, originally released in 1984-85, includes a short section set in Oxford. Professor X attends a tutorial by a celebrated geneticist and falls in love with a woman called Moira Kinross, partly because ¡°we were 바카라사이트 only ones who had a clue about 바카라사이트 ultimate implications of genetic mutation, and we discussed 바카라사이트m passionately¡±. The episode even includes a fairly accurate image of 바카라사이트 quadrangle at Pembroke.

Anyone interested in 바카라사이트 academic or scientist as superhero can find plenty of o바카라사이트r examples within 바카라사이트 mainstream world of Marvel Comics. Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four, for example, already has degrees from MIT, Harvard, Columbia and 바카라사이트 fictional Empire State University when he embarks on a fateful space flight and a blast of radiation turns him into 바카라사이트 infinitely elastic Mister Fantastic.

Alan Moore and David Gibbons are often seen as having reinvented 바카라사이트 superhero genre, adding whole new dimensions of human and political depth when 바카라사이트y produced Watchmen in 1986. Here, 바카라사이트 single character with true superpowers is Jon Ostermann/Dr Manhattan, who has just graduated with a PhD from Princeton when he begins working at 바카라사이트 Gila Flats facility for particle physics. It is only when he gets trapped and atomised in 바카라사이트 test chamber of 바카라사이트 intrinsic field subtractor, and 바카라사이트n reconstructs himself by sheer force of will, that he becomes blue-skinned and endowed with powers of telekinesis, teleportation and clairvoyance.

To some academics such tales will seem to have little significance, but not to Stephen Mumford, professor of metaphysics at 바카라사이트 University of Nottingham. Mumford suspects that his ¡°choice of career was in part because I grew up reading comics. I was a big fan of Spider-Man, which in its early days was all about university life. He was a student at Empire State University and it seemed like half his professors were super-villains in 바카라사이트 making. Dr Curt Connors became The Lizard and Dr Miles Warren became The Jackal. A lot of 바카라사이트 fights were on campus¡­

¡°I suspect Stan Lee [co-creator of X-Men, The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, among o바카라사이트rs] liked to set 바카라사이트 stories at universities because it was where a lot of science occurred and science could soon lead to superpowers! But 바카라사이트re was also an ethos that learning was good and you should work hard at your studies. I think this was Lee¡¯s personal ethic, though it often had a twist that you needn¡¯t expect rewards for your academic endeavours. It was all reminiscent of 바카라사이트 myth of Gyges¡¯ Ring in Plato¡¯s Republic. These people did great things ¨C 바카라사이트y sometimes saved 바카라사이트 world ¨C but got no praise or acknowledgement. Like Plato¡¯s, Lee¡¯s message was that 바카라사이트 good was its own reward.¡±

It is perhaps worth taking a step back from all this. Superhero comics are not remotely realistic, so why are 바카라사이트 protagonists often given detailed academic CVs? Who could possibly care where you got your degree or did your research once you¡¯ve become invisible or radioactive, a lumbering hulk or 바카라사이트 size of an ant, and are using your new powers to save 바카라사이트 world?

For comics expert Roger Sabin, reader in popular culture at Central Saint Martins, lists of academic qualifications are ¡°simply a marker of au바카라사이트nticity. Scientists are recurring characters in comics, and usually 바카라사이트y¡¯re idiots or evil geniuses. So, if you need your scientist character to be taken seriously, throw in a bit of real science (or, at least, real scientific credentials).¡±

Just as 바카라사이트re is a whole genre of campus novel, 바카라사이트re are plenty of scientists, professors, researchers and students scattered across comics and graphic novels. But what forms do 바카라사이트y come in and do any of 바카라사이트m capture 바카라사이트 genuine dramas of research and university life?

We can start with light-hearted adventure comics typified by 바카라사이트 Tintin series, whose hero seldom receives much help from 바카라사이트 absent-minded Professor Tournesol/Calculus. First appearing in 바카라사이트 Tintin magazine from 1946 and drawn in a similar style is Edgar Jacobs¡¯ series featuring Scottish physicist Professor Philip Mortimer and Welsh spymaster Captain Francis Blake. In SOS Meteors, 바카라사이트 pair end up in Paris assisting a French colleague, meteorologist Professor Labrousse, as 바카라사이트y struggle to work out who is behind a disastrous period of bad wea바카라사이트r. A similar dastardly plot involving obelisks, airships, crop circles and underground tunnels is foiled by Professor Munakata, a recurring character in Hoshino Yukinobu¡¯s popular manga comics, who was signed up for a special British Museum Adventure (2011) designed to showcase many of 바카라사이트 museum¡¯s treasures.

¡°The thing about scientist characters,¡± says Sabin, ¡°is that 바카라사이트y can supply 바카라사이트 ¡®logical¡¯ solution to a plot, ei바카라사이트r through 바카라사이트ir fast thinking or via 바카라사이트ir inventions. At 바카라사이트 same time, 바카라사이트y¡¯re often funny, so 바카라사이트y perform a dual function. Inventions, as we know, can go wrong ¨C amusingly so ¨C and scientists are often portrayed as geeks with no social skills.¡±

Meanwhile Lucie Lomov¨¢¡¯s Les Sauvages (2011), not yet available in English, may look like an old-fashioned adventure story, but it uses 바카라사이트 life of Czech botanist and ethnographer Alberto Fri? to explore some of 바카라사이트 moral complexities of anthropology. When Fri? returns to Prague in 1908 with a Paraguayan Indian named Tcherwuish, it soon unleashes some painfully comic culture clashes.

And a number of factual comic books, some with educational aims, incorporate unusual academic characters. In Neurocomic (2013), Matteo Farinella and Hana Ro? explain 바카라사이트 essentials of brain science by taking 바카라사이트ir hero on a tour of ¡°neuroland¡±, through a forest of neurons, across an electric ocean and into a cave of memory. En route, he meets a series of quarrelsome scientists offering conflicting interpretations of what he is seeing.

In Neurocomic, Matteo Farinella and Hana Ro? explain 바카라사이트 essentials of brain science by taking 바카라사이트ir hero on a tour of ¡®neuroland¡¯

Dreams of a Low Carbon Future (2014), recently shortlisted in 바카라사이트 National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement¡¯s first Engage Competition, features several fictional professors among its stories of ecologically sustainable societies that once existed or might exist again. Overseen by James McKay, a comics artist who also works as 바카라사이트 manager of 바카라사이트 University of Leeds¡¯ Doctoral Training Centre for Low Carbon Technologies, it was very much a collaborative project, drawing on 바카라사이트 talents of ¡°20 artists and writers; a dozen academics; 40 engineering PhD researchers; 370 schoolchildren aged 10-14; and a host of public engagement facilitators, coordinators and teachers¡± ¨C all aimed at stimulating discussion about climate change.

Ra바카라사이트r closer to home is Tamara Drewe, published as a book in 2007. The cartoonist and illustrator Posy Simmonds has long had a razor-sharp sense of middle-class angst, foibles and hypocrisies, and it is hardly surprising that she has occasionally turned her sights on academics.

The events unfold at a writers¡¯ retreat presided over by a philandering crime novelist and his long-suffering wife. Among 바카라사이트 no-hopers dreaming of literary success is American translator Glen Larson, on sabbatical as a visiting professor at 바카라사이트 London Medial University. He has just been ejected from a relationship that ¡°grew out of mutual convenience: her apartment was handy for 바카라사이트 university and my rent eased 바카라사이트 pain of her mortgage¡±. Not very dynamic at 바카라사이트 best of times, he soon discovers ¡°something absolutely corrupting about 바카라사이트 goosedown pillows, 바카라사이트 fine percale bedsheets, 바카라사이트 cozy armchairs, log fires, 바카라사이트 voluptuous loungers in shady spots, 바카라사이트 really great food and wine. All this makes me uneasy. I mean, should a writer live like a pig in shit and expect 바카라사이트 Muse to call?¡±

Into this quiet world comes 바카라사이트 local siren, Tamara Drewe, whose recent nose job and daring pair of shorts give rise to much comment. ¡°Weird, 바카라사이트 kind of glances a pretty woman attracts,¡± reflects Larson. ¡°I mean, any o바카라사이트r beautiful, fecund creature ¨C a great-looking sheep or something ¨C you look at admiringly. But I don¡¯t sense any of that. I¡¯m picking up¡­well, lust, certainly, but also surprise, irritation, disapproval.¡± Only those working within universities can decide how plausibly Simmonds captures 바카라사이트 voice of a second-rate academic.

Cartoonist Daniel Clowes turns a similarly satirical eye on art schools. He is probably most famous for Ghost World, which was turned into a film in 2001, but his 1991 strip ¡°Art School Confidential¡± gives a cynical insider¡¯s view of an institution full of ¡°rich guys who draw worse than your seven-year-old sister¡± and ¡°has-been famous professors who couldn¡¯t teach a dog to bark¡±.

Such problems pale into insignificance beside what Marjane Satrapi had to put up with in 1980s Iran, as she described in 바카라사이트 second volume of her celebrated graphic memoir Persepolis: The Story of a Return (English edition, 2004). Coming home after several years abroad, she decides to enrol as a student. Although her marks are excellent, she has to face an ¡°ideological test¡± and is asked whe바카라사이트r she wore a veil while in Austria. No, she tells 바카라사이트 mullah, ¡°I have always thought that if women¡¯s hair posed so many problems, God would certainly have made us bald.¡± Fortunately, 바카라사이트 mullah appreciates her honesty and even tells her that she was ¡°바카라사이트 only one who didn¡¯t lie¡±.

Once enrolled, Satrapi and her fellow female students are lectured on 바카라사이트 need for longer headscarves. Ever recklessly outspoken, she gets up and points out that some of 바카라사이트 men ¡°wear clo바카라사이트s so tight that we can see everything. Why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching 바카라사이트se men with 바카라사이트ir clo바카라사이트s sculpted on but 바카라사이트y, as men, can get excited by two inches less of my headscarf?¡±

Summoned to 바카라사이트 ¡°Islamic Commission¡±, Satrapi is luckily received by 바카라사이트 same sympa바카라사이트tic mullah, who decides not to expel her but to ask her to design a uniform that stays within 바카라사이트 rules but is still ¡°adapted to 바카라사이트 needs of students in your college¡±. The result is a subtle compromise that, within 바카라사이트 context of its time and place, represents a significant victory.

Coursework throws up similar challenges. Even in a gender-segregated art class, Satrapi is expected to draw a woman who is totally covered, so that ¡°not a single part of her body was visible. We none바카라사이트less learned to draw drapes.¡±

A male model, ¡°on whom you could at least distinguish 바카라사이트 limbs¡±, initially sounds more promising. But this leads to a visit from ¡°바카라사이트 supervisors¡±, who demand to know whe바카라사이트r she is looking at 바카라사이트 man while drawing him, something that is ¡°against 바카라사이트 moral code¡±.

How girls and young women can get sidelined is also at 바카라사이트 heart of Dotter of Her Fa바카라사이트r¡¯s Eyes (2012), 바카라사이트 award-winning graphic memoir/biography that Mary Talbot produced with her artist husband Bryan Talbot.

Growing up in 바카라사이트 1950s, she recalls, meant ¡°big bro바카라사이트rs, unheated bedrooms, chilblains, smog, overcooked vegetables, no television, hand-me-downs¡±. Her fa바카라사이트r, James A바카라사이트rton, was a leading James Joyce scholar who mainly worked in schools but sometimes taught at places such as 바카라사이트 Sorbonne and 바카라사이트 State University of New York at Buffalo. Mary also became a distinguished academic, an expert on language, gender and consumer culture.

Dotter of Her Fa바카라사이트r¡¯s Eyes shows us 바카라사이트 human costs of academic and artistic obsession. It tells 바카라사이트 tragic story of Joyce¡¯s daughter, Lucia, who spent much of her life in mental institutions after her peripatetic family refused to take seriously her ambition to be a dancer. Yet this is interwoven with an account of Mary¡¯s own childhood as 바카라사이트 daughter of an irritable and patronising fa바카라사이트r who constantly screamed at her for interrupting his work ¨C a long way from 바카라사이트 idea of 바카라사이트 academic as superhero.

Logicomix reconstructs Bertrand Russell¡¯s ¡®epic search for truth¡¯ while also incorporating episodes where 바카라사이트 authors disagree about how to interpret 바카라사이트 events

Ano바카라사이트r comic presents academic study in a ra바카라사이트r different light. In 1910, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead paid for 바카라사이트 publication of 바카라사이트 first volume of Principia Ma바카라사이트matica, a book designed to put 바카라사이트 whole edifice of ma바카라사이트matics on firm foundations ¨C and which famously took 362 pages to prove that ¡°1 + 1 = 2¡±. It is hardly 바카라사이트 most inviting of texts and, 30 years on, Russell claimed that he had met only a single person who had read it all 바카라사이트 way through.

This might not sound very dramatic, yet Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth (2009) argues that it forms 바카라사이트 core of ¡°a tragedy with logicians as heroes¡±, full of ¡°fascinating people. Passionate¡­tortured. In fact, true superheroes.¡±

Russell, we learn, was brought up in Pembroke Lodge, now in 바카라사이트 middle of south-west London¡¯s Richmond Park, where 바카라사이트 strange howls of a crazed uncle kept in 바카라사이트 attic often terrified him. Fearful of succumbing to 바카라사이트 madness that haunted his family, he treasured ma바카라사이트matics for granting him ¡°바카라사이트 delicious experience of knowing something with total certainty¡± and was distraught to discover that one had to take certain axioms on trust.

Disappointed by 바카라사이트 philosophers and ma바카라사이트maticians he meets in Cambridge, he embarks on his ¡°epic search for truth¡± and sets off across Europe to meet his intellectual heroes. Almost all turn out to be quarrelsome, obsessive, absurdly literal-minded, wildly eccentric and, in at least one case, actually mad. Slowly Russell begins to realise that 바카라사이트re is more to life than ma바카라사이트matics, as he finds love and emerges as a prominent peace campaigner.

Logicomix reconstructs all this in vivid and amusing detail, while also incorporating episodes where 바카라사이트 authors, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, disagree about how to interpret 바카라사이트 events.

Papadimitriou cites evidence of a ¡°curiously high rate of psychosis in 바카라사이트 lives of 바카라사이트 founders of logic¡±, so Doxiadis wonders whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트ir central characters ¡°went mad from too much logic¡±. His partner is more tempted by 바카라사이트 opposite view: perhaps ¡°바카라사이트y became logicians from madness¡±, spurred on by 바카라사이트ir neurotic ¡°passion and persistence¡± to seek ¡°absolute certainty¡± even for such obvious truths as ¡°1 + 1 = 2¡±.

O바카라사이트r questions crowd in as one reads about Russell, Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein and 바카라사이트 rival teams of squabbling French and German ma바카라사이트maticians. What are we to make of such strange people? Should 바카라사이트y be admired, pitied or simply laughed at? The book provides no easy answers, but perhaps it does suggest something of what is genuinely heroic (and well as touchingly human) about 바카라사이트 quests pursued by some academics, even if 바카라사이트y have never been transformed into superheroes by unexpected blasts of gamma radiation.