Tempe Public Library

Who is the Female Action Hero?

Female action heroes.

Though the female action hero has exploded into awareness in the twenty-first century, she has long been around. She can be found in Greek tragedy, Norse legends, eighteenth-century female soldier stories, nineteenth-century adventure fiction, and of course twentieth-century comics. She fights not only lions, zombies, and space aliens, but also sexism across the globe. You may have heard of Wonder Woman but what about the Burka Avenger? In this presentation, which will include visual aids and encourage (though not require) audience participation, we will discuss the female action hero’s strengths and the hurdles she faces; her ability to challenge system of oppression that may attempt to exploit her; and her significance to generations of readers, viewers, and gamers.

Melissa Free is Associate Professor of English, Affiliate Faculty in the School of Social Transformation, and Barrett Honors College Faculty at Arizona State University. Her monograph, Beyond Gold and Diamonds: Genre, the Authorial Informant, and the British South African Novel, was published by State University of New York Press in 2021. She is the editor of a Broadview Anthology of British Literature edition, The Dead and Other Stories, by James Joyce, as well as a number of scholarly articles and book chapters. Her primary academic interests are Victorian literature and culture, twentieth-century British literature and culture, postcolonial studies, women, gender, and sexuality studies, and genre studies. Her current research focuses on literary representations of mind control as a technology of empire.

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