1. Heroification, Villainification, and Political Polarization: Implications for Thinking Politically About U.S. Politics 13
WayneJournell

2. "Incapable, Uninterested, and Ineffective"?: Locating Villainification Narratives in Financial Education 29
ErinC. Adams

3. Will the Real Villain Please Stand Up?: Holocaust Education and Its Hidden Transgressors 45
RebeccaC. Christ, Brandon Haas, and Oren Baruch Stier

4. Removing the Binaries in History Curricula and Teacher Education: Difficult-ishas an Antidote to Villainification and Its Partner, "Difficult Histories" 63
Brittany Jones

PART II: VILLAINIFICATION LESSONS FROM POPULAR CULTURE

5. Subverting the Villain Trope in Apocalyptic Fiction: Survivance in MoonoftheCrustedSnow 79
Kimberly Edmondson and Keri Helgren

6. "Hang On, So That Thing's a Loki Too?": Mimetic Materialities, Variants, and Villainy 95
BrettonA. Varga and ErinC. Adams

7. Wanda the Villain?: How WandaVisionCan Aid Discussions About Enslavement and Anti-Black Racism 111
Danelle Adeniji, Melissa McQueen, and Cathryn van Kessel

PART III: SOCIOCULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF VILLAINIFICATION NARRATIVES

8. Can Technology Be Evil?: Heroes, Villains, and the Banality of Technology 127
RyanM. Smits and DanielG. Krutka

9. Identifying the Villain: Antivillainification, Social Studies, and LGBTQ Individuals 145
Heather P. Abrahamson

10. Anti-Complicity Education: Combating Supervillains and Lesser Villains in Contemporary Rape Culture 161
AmandaM.E. Thomson

11. Placial Villains: Naming, Memorial Geographies of Invasion, and the Work of Social Studies 181
Bryan Smith

12. Horses, Heretics, and Madame Déficit: The Historical Villainification of the Female Body 197
Andrew Thomson

Concluding Thoughts 213
Cathryn van Kessel and Kimberly Edmondson

About the Editors and Contributors 215

Index 219