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The beloved Uncle Iroh once told Prince Zuko, "It's time to start asking the big questions." This statement is as true for us as viewers of Avatar: The Last Airbender as it is for the banished prince.
This collection invites fans of one of the most popular animated shows in America to contemplate how the Avatar Universe prompts big questions about meaning. Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel series, The Legend of Korra, combine philosophical thoughts from both Eastern and Western perspectives, and this collection of twelve essays helps readers to recognize and consider those influences more deeply, from ideas as grand as the soul's relationship to the universe to the role tea can have in making a Zen master. Contributors consider the show from perspectives such as Buddhism, Taoism, the Hero's Journey, the theory of the elements, and many more.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Preface
Anthony G. Cirilla
Introduction: Why Theology in Avatar: The Last Airbender?
Michael A. Riggins
Storybending and Perspectives on Narrative
The Avatar with a Thousand Faces: Joseph Campbell, Myth and Modes of the Hero's Journey
Sarah Taylor
Reverberations of Eucatastrophe: Tolkienesque Fantasy in Aang's Secondary World
Nick Polk
Can Monsters Contribute to Beauty? Hei Bai as a Case Study
James C. McGlothlin
Avatar: The Last Airbender as a Call for Justice and Liberation
Charise P. DeBerry
Tracing and Contemplating Eastern Influences
The Way She Walks: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of Taoism in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra
Daeun Kim
Iroh: The Making of a "Zen" Master in Animation
Dikshya Karki
"To tough the poisons": Buddhist Debates on Love, Hate and Thinking
Jed Forman
"All the elements": Aang as Avat¿ra, Bodhisattva and Christ-Figure
Samuel J. Youngs
Engaging Western Perspectives
Finding an Unlikely Community: Moses in the Book of Exodus and Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender Read Through the Lens of Trauma
Tristan D. Krüger, Hans-Cristoph Thapelo Lange and L. Juliana Claassens
Augustine, Aang and Just War Theory
David Haines
"These delicate balances": Bending and the Boethian Consolation of Elemental Harmony
Anthony G. Cirilla
The Soul: The Ethical Constraints on the Avatar
Clara Nisley
"I know you can do it, Aang, for you have done it before": Reincarnation in the Avatar Universe
Aidan Norrie
About the Contributors
Index
About the author
Anthony G. Cirilla is an associate professor of English at College of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri and associate editor of
Carmina Philosophiae: The Journal of the International Boethius Society and writes essays on medieval, Romantic, and fantasy literature.
Michael A. Riggins is a PhD student in English literature at Baylor University. His work focuses on the reception of Christian spiritual practices in Seventeenth Century devotional poetry and is the book and arts editor of
Ad Fontes: A Journal of Protestant Letters.
