The idea of heroism has become thoroughly muddled today. In contemporary society, any behavior that seems distinctly difficult or unusually impressive is classified as heroic: everyone from firefighters to foster fathers to freedom fighters are our heroes. But what motivates these people to act heroically and what prevents other people from being heroes? In our culture today, what makes one sort of hero appear more heroic than another sort? In order to answer these questions, Ari Kohen turns to classical conceptions of the hero to explain the confusion and to highlight the ways in which distinct heroic categories can be useful at different times. Untangling Heroism argues for the existence of three categories of heroism that can be traced back to the earliest Western literature – the epic poetry of Homer and the dialogues of Plato – and that are complex enough to resonate with us and assist us in thinking about heroism today. Kohen carefully examines the Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus and Plato’s Socrates, and then compares the three to each other. He makes clear how and why it is that the other-regarding hero, Socrates, supplanted the battlefield hero, Achilles, and the suffering hero, Odysseus. Finally, he explores in detail four cases of contemporary heroism that highlight Plato’s success. Kohen states that in a post-Socratic world, we have chosen to place a premium on heroes who make other-regarding choices over self-interested ones. He argues that when humans face the fact of their mortality, they are able to think most clearly about the sort of life they want to have lived, and only in doing that does heroic action become a possibility. Kohen’s careful analysis and rethinking of the heroism concept will be relevant to scholars across the disciplines of political science, philosophy, literature, and classics.

Classes and books on the Holocaust often center on the experiences of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, but rescuers also occupy a prominent space in Holocaust courses and literature even though incidents of rescue were relatively few and rescuers constituted less than 1 percent of the population in Nazi-occupied Europe. As inspiring figures and role models, rescuers challenge us to consider how we would act if we found ourselves in similarly perilous situations of grave moral import. Their stories speak to us and move us. Yet this was not always the case. Seventy years ago these brave men and women, today regarded as the Righteous Among the Nations, went largely unrecognized; indeed, sometimes they were even singled out for abuse from their co-nationals for their selfless actions. Unlikely Heroes traces the evolution of the humanitarian hero, looking at the ways in which historians, politicians, and filmmakers have treated individual rescuers like Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler, as well as the rescue efforts of humanitarian organizations. Contributors in this edited collection also explore classroom possibilities for dealing with the role of rescuers, at both the university and the secondary level.

This reference work is an important resource in the growing field of heroism studies. It presents concepts, research, and events key to understanding heroism, heroic leadership, heroism development, heroism science, and their relevant applications to businesses, organizations, clinical psychology, human wellness, human growth potential, public health, social justice, social activism, and the humanities. The encyclopedia emphasizes five key realms of theory and application: Business and organization, focusing on management effectiveness, emotional intelligence, empowerment, ethics, transformational leadership, product branding, motivation, employee wellness, entrepreneurship, and whistleblowers; clinical-health psychology and public health, focusing on stress and trauma, maltreatment, emotional distress, bullying, psychopathy, depression, anxiety, family disfunction, chronic illness, and healthcare workers’ wellbeing; human growth and positive psychology, discussing altruism, authenticity, character strengths, compassion, elevation, emotional agility, eudaimonia, morality, empathy, flourishing, flow, self-efficacy, joy, kindness, prospection, moral development, courage, and resilience; social justice and activism, highlighting anti-racism, anti-bullying, civil disobedience, civil rights heroes, climate change, environmental heroes, enslavement heroes, human rights heroism, humanitarian heroes, inclusivity, LGBTQ+ heroism, #metoo movement heroism, racism, sustainability, and women’s suffrage heroes; and humanities, relating to the mythic hero’s journey, bliss, boon, crossing the threshold, epic heroes, fairy tales, fiction, language and rhetoric, narratives, mythology, hero monomyth, humanities and heroism, religious heroes, and tragic heroes.

Over the past decade, research and theory on heroism and heroic leadership has greatly expanded, providing new insights on heroic behavior. The Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership brings together new scholarship in this burgeoning field to build an important foundation for further multidisciplinary developments. In its three parts, "Origins of Heroism," "Types of Heroism," and "Processes of Heroism," distinguished social scientists and researchers explore topics such as morality, resilience, courage, empathy, meaning, altruism, spirituality, and transformation. This handbook provides a much-needed consolidation and synthesis for heroism and heroic leadership scholars and graduate students.

The rhetoric of heroism pervades politics. Political leaders invoke their own heroic credentials, soldiers are celebrated at sporting events, ordinary citizens become state symbols (or symbols of opposition), and high profile celebrities embody a glamorized, humanitarian heroism. Using analytical tools drawn from international relations, gender studies, war studies, history, and comparative politics, this book examines the cultural and political phenomenon of heroism and its relationship to the process of creating, sustaining and challenging political communities. Arguing that heroism is socially constructed and relational, the contributors demonstrate that heroes and heroic narratives always serve particular interests in the ways that they create and uphold certain images of states and other political communities. Studying the heroes that have been sanctioned by a community tells us important things about that community, including how it sees itself, its values and its pressing needs at a particular moment. Conversely, understanding those who are presented in opposition to heroes (victims, demonized opponents), or who become the heroes of resistance movements, can also tell us a great deal about the politics of a state or a regime. Heroes are at once the institutionalization of political power, and yet amorphous--one can go from being a hero to a villain in short order. This book will appeal to scholars and students working on topics related to international relations, gender, security and war studies, comparative politics, state building, and political communities.

This volume adds to previous historical and political studies about 'Gladiator' with essays about the movie’s relation to pop culture and contemporary discourses. It not only relates 'Gladiator' to traditional cinema aspects such as heroism, music, acting, studio culture, and visual effects, but it also connects the film to sports, religion, and the environment, expanding the ways in which the film can be evaluated by modern audiences. The volume can be read by individuals or in classroom settings, especially as a recommended text for students studying the ancient world in film.

Is heroism possible for everyone? Should it be? What kinds of stories do we tell when we talk about heroes and what do these stories reveal about how we view ourselves? This book takes up these questions and more by reflecting on twenty-first century American television shows. Among the shows examined are Only Murders in the Building, Game of Thrones, The Good Lord Bird, The Boys, and Severance. What we find is an entertainment landscape unsure about what a hero is or even what qualifies as heroic. In a nation uncertain about heroism, we see a dramatic rise in the popularity of the anti-hero and even in worlds without heroes. This fragmented variety highlights how the American political mind is similarly fragmented in what it believes are its highest aspirations—and its deepest anxieties. It is this fragmentation that may help us understand why twenty-first century entertainment has elevated the heroic to the supernatural while simultaneously democratizing heroism to the point where anyone may become one. A Hero in All of Us?: Heroism and American Political Thought as Seen on TV explores this multifaceted landscape to better understand how Americans view their heroes and themselves.

Part philosophy, part practical handbook, 'The Hero Forge' is designed to empower those who want to make a difference in the world. Andy Fisher guides you, chapter by chapter, through the tools, attributes and skills needed to be of service, at a time when we are more in need of heroes than ever before. You do not need a cape, a mask or any superpower to become an 'everyday hero', just a growth mindset and the desire to be part of something bigger than yourself. Heroes are not born, they are forged and this is your call to adventure. Will you shy away or embrace the challenge?

In this book, Brian Doak analyzes the way biblical authors described the bodies of some of their most iconic male heroic figures, such as Jacob, the Judges, Saul, and David. These bodies represent not mere individuals, but rather also communicate as national bodies.

Reconstructs the socio-political history of the heroic in music through case studies spanning the middle ages to the twenty-first century The first part of this volume reconstructs the various musical strategies that composers of medieval chant, Renaissance madrigals, and Baroque operas, cantatas or oratorios employed when referring to heroic ideas exemplifying their personal moral and political values. A second part investigating the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries expands the previous narrow focus on Beethoven's heroic middle period and the cult of the virtuoso. It demonstrates the wide spectrum of heroic positions - national, ethnic, revolutionary, bourgeois and spiritual - that filtered not only into 'classical' large-scale heroic symphonies and virtuoso solo concerts, but also into chamber music and vernacular dance music. The third part documents the forced heroization of music in twentieth-century totalitarian regimes such as Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union and its consequences for heroic thinking and musical styles in the time thereafter. Final chapters show how recent rock-folk and avant-garde musicians in North America and Europe feature new heroic models such as the everyday hero and the scientific heroine revealing new confidence in the idea of the heroic.