Héroes postheroicos

The global pandemic triggered by the coronavirus crisis brought an inflation of heroism from its hand, and journalists and politicians rushed to praise the heroes and heroines of Covid where individual and collective efforts were forced to make up for the precarious budget. However, heroic figures today are surrounded by a halo of suspicion (too much 'pathos', too much overflowing masculinity, too much moral superiority), and it has even been proposed that we live in a 'postheroic age'. Despite this, the awareness that we are going through a time in which there is no longer room for heroism coexists with the proliferation of stories about heroes and heroines. From this paradoxical concurrence, Ulrich Bröckling poses in "Postheroic Heroes" the urgent task of investigating the social meaning of the heroic and of rethinking its function in the contemporary world, as well as its future (if it has one).