Passing, Covering, and Oscillations of the True and False Self: The Identity Management Strategies of Superheroic Teachers in Comics

This chapter begins by describing schools as overwhelmingly normative spaces, whose socializing functions tend to encourage teachers (especially those whose identities do not immediately conform to mainstream expectations) to compromise and disguise significant parts of who they are. As a means of visualizing the internal experiences of teaching while in disguise, this chapter then explores the identity management strategies of a number of superheroic teachers—The Punisher, Superman, Emma Frost, Black Panther, and Black Bison—navigating between radically opposed identity formations. Rather than only understanding split identity in terms of failure and defense, however, this chapter’s final section looks to the character of Aurora in Marvel’s Alpha Flight, and works with Winnicott’s theory of the True and False Self to propose an understanding of plurality as a creative and potentially empowering response to social contexts unprepared to acknowledge and appreciate non-normative ways of being and expression.