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Peter M. Coogan, "The Secret Origin of the Superhero: The Origin and Evolution of the Superhero Genre in America." Michigan State University, November 2002.
Working from Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralist methodology and Richard Slotkin's definition of myth, this dissertation traces the origin and evolution of the superhero genre and its central figure, the superhero. The first part, chapters two through six, examines the heroic polarity-clusters of oppositional characteristics embodied in pairs of heroes linked by an authorial chain of influence that have mediated tensions within American culture. The heroes...