University Press of Mississippi Ms. Marvel's America: No Normal

Review Overall, the collection presents a wide range of examinations of Ms. Marvel. In this manner, the essays provide ways to look at Kamala Khan and the series while the last two parts of the collection present teachers with ways to incorporate Ms. Marvel into the classroom and challenge the still-prevailing myth of comic book readers as solely white males. At the end of the collection, Shabana Mir's interview with G. Willow Wilson touches on the themes that the essays in the collection explore.--Matthew Teutsch "International Journal of Comic Art"Teenaged Pakistani American Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, is unapologetically Muslim in a low-key Jersey way. Ripe for interpreting, she's the superhero everyone wants to think with, whether the subject is US imperialism, Islam and gender, race and racism in America, or diversity in comics. This interdisciplinary collection, ably edited by Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid, is wide-ranging and very smart. I highly recommend it.--Kecia Ali, professor of religion at Boston University and author of Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence Product Description Contributions by José Alaniz, Jessica Baldanzi, Eric Berlatsky, Peter E. Carlson, Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins, Antero Garcia, Aaron Kashtan, Winona Landis, A. David Lewis, Martin Lund, Shabana Mir, Kristin M. Peterson, Nicholaus Pumphrey, Hussein Rashid, and J. Richard StevensMainstream superheroes are becoming more and more diverse, with new identities for Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. Though the Marvel-verse is becoming much more racially, ethnically, and gender diverse, many of these comics remain shy about religion.The new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, is a notable exception, not only because she is written and conceived by two women, Sana Amanat and G. Willow Wilson, but also because both of these women bring their own experiences as Muslim Americans to the character.This distinct collection brings together scholars from a range of disciplines including literature, cultural studies, religious studies, pedagogy, and communications to engage with a single character, exploring Khan's significance for a broad readership. While acknowledged as the first Muslim superhero to headline her own series, her character appears well-developed and multifaceted in many other ways. She is the first character to take over an established superhero persona, Ms. Marvel, without a reboot of the series or death of the original character. The teenager is also a second-generation immigrant, born to parents who arrived in New Jersey from Pakistan.With essays from and about diverse voices on an array of topics from fashion to immigration history to fandom, this volume includes an exclusive interview with Ms. Marvel author and cocreator G. Willow Wilson by gender studies scholar Shabana Mir. About the Author Jessica Baldanzi is professor of English at Goshen College, where she teaches comics and graphic novels, as well as twentieth and twenty-first century American Literature, as well as media and popular culture. She coedited a Comics and Graphic Novels issue for the Center for Mennonite Writing Journal. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Genders, andthe Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction.Hussein Rashidis contingent faculty member at The New School and founder of Islamicate, L3C, a consultancy focusing on religious literacy and cultural competency. His work has appeared in Muslim World, the Journal of Africana Religions, and the Oxford Handbook of American Islam, and he also served as the content lead for the Children's Museum of Manhattan's America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far exhibit.