What does the concept of hybrid heroes mean to people and businesses, and how do the notions differ in various cultures? How can we apply the theory, and what are the pitfalls? As we all come from different backgrounds, we discussed our perspectives.

How should we define the concept of hybrid heroes?

What does the concept of the hybrid hero mean for your area of expertise?

In her lucid account of religion and evolution, Barbara King intends to tell the narrative of the origin of religion that she locates within the social realm in what she calls “belongingness.” She admits that her position on the social origins of religion is not new, and she shares an evolutionary perspective when she writes, “Over the course of prehistory, belongingness was transformed from a basic emotional relating between individuals to a deeper relating, one that had the potential to become transcendent, between people and supernatural beings or forces.” She continues by defining religion as a practice and emotional engagement with the sacred and not necessarily about beliefs dealing with supernatural beings, a position that puts her at odds with some researchers using findings from cognitive science. King does not adhere to the position that beliefs can serve as a means of cementing social unity and enhances a more permanent social body. Instead of such a role for beliefs, King refers to empathy. She explains, “All primates … exhibit empathy that is based on emotional linkage with others of their own kind.” What she is referring to at this point is cognitive empathy that she claims represented a turning point in the development of evolution's social and emotional patterns. Social patterns demonstrate humans communicating with each other by adjusting to the actions of each other. This pattern of behavior is part of a quest for the sacred, a search for meaning. Drawing a parallel between humans and primates, King calls attention to communicative actions of these respective groups that bear similarities with non-symbolic ritual. Because early religion is not intellectual or related to beliefs, it is not something subjective. It is instead emotional and social.

Although ritual has social features, not all scholars agree with King when she stresses its social origins. Robert Bellah thinks, for instance, that ritual and religion emerge from play. Play presupposes a shared intentionality, which suggests its social nature in the final analysis. The anthropologist Roy Rappaport claims that emotions are the source of ritual, and that religion comes from ritual.

Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was one of the most influential and creative mythographers. His most important achievement is no doubt the modeling of a single great story, which he calls the hero's journey. The basic motif is to leave one state of being and find a way to transform the social world into a richer condition. In his foundational work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell (2008) regarded the monomyth as universal across time and cultural spaces. Therefore, he was less interested in cultural differences and contemporary fashions and trends but more in the discovery of the similarities and the common ground of myths as well as real or fictional stories. Although Campbell analyzed the elementary themes of myths and stories worldwide for common ground, he did point out that their expression is different in various sociocultural environments. Though myths resonate with local needs, they are revered by all people on earth, “appearing everywhere in new combinations, while remaining, like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same” (Campbell 2007, 15).

Campbell was deeply influenced by Jung's (1969) conceptualization of the archetype, Zimmer's (1992) mythological Indian studies, and in particular Rank's (1952) psychological approach to myths. His insights also parallel related developments in ritual theory offered by van Gennep (1960) and Turner (1969). Campbell's (1991) ideas were disseminated to a larger, non-academic audience by an interview series with Bill Moyers, which was broadcast one year after his death and published as The Power of Myth. Campbell's influence on popular culture is indisputable, and in fact, it was in the movies that he gained his greatest fame (Vogler 2007). His intellectual influence is readily apparent in the first Star Wars film trilogy (Campbell 1991, 2004). However, his multilayered work has not received enough acknowledgment from the academic community (Rensma 2009). As inspired by Campbell, heroism science emerged over the last decade as an interdisciplinary research field, and he is regarded as its founder (Allison and Goethals 2017).

This chapter will zoom in on the villain-hero dynamic in fictional narratives and its impact on career identity and conceptualizations of moral leadership in business contexts. Illustrated by empirical research, I will describe how hybrid heroes and their journeys can influence career identity via different pathways. Second, I will explore the influence of the hybrid hero on the field of leadership—presenting a more dynamic perspective on leaders in the context of situational and temporal change. A link between heroic leadership and hybrid heroes will be theorized. Can we be the saint-like heroes we often initially aspire to become? A more complex and holistic perception of heroism may broaden our understanding of moral leadership. Moreover, the hybrid hero spectrum could offer people a window into the morally ambiguous parts within themselves, stimulating conscious, critical reflection.

In my chapter, I consciously use the term “hero” to refer to all genders. This is partly because I am not keen on the word “heroine” to specifically refer to female heroes, and also because the traditional male connotation feels outdated. Everyone can be a hero.

Villain-Heroes in Fictional Narratives and Literature

Jeff Lindsay's books featuring Dexter Morgan tell the story of a man with a troubled childhood who grows up to be a hero and a villain at the same time. Early on, his adoptive father realizes that Dexter has psychopathic traits that fit early onset conduct disorder (formerly labeled “psychopathy”) with an insuppressible urge to kill. His father teaches him to at least follow a strict moral code when he kills, and he becomes a dark vigilante. During the day, Dexter works as a blood spatter analyst for the police, yet at night he kills rapists and murderers who are slipping through the cracks of the legal system. This makes him both villain and saint—a morally ambiguous hybrid hero (Amper 2010; Brophy 2010; Van Tourhout 2019).

I grew up in Orange, Connecticut—a fairly rural suburb in southern Connecticut that is home to about 14,000 people and encompasses about 17 square miles. Orange is about two hours north of New York City and about five miles inland from the Atlantic coast and the Long Island Sound. The Long Island Sound watershed includes many cities and towns along the New York and Connecticut coastlines. Countless rivers and streams flow through these small towns and eventually discharge into the Sound, making for scenic drives and rest stops along the way. But the Wepawaug River, Indian River, and Oyster River, all of which flow through the town, do far more than serve as scenic rest stops, property markers, and fishing spots for local residents and visitors. A look at the popular eBird app, for instance, reveals 118 songbird, seabird, and waterfowl sightings along the Oyster River alone, which runs through Orange and empties into Long Island Sound. Species including Ring-billed Gulls, Great Egrets, Piping Plovers, and Belted Kingfishers depend on these streams and rivers for sustenance and safe habitat.

The house I grew up in is just up the street from a section of the Indian River that still runs behind some of the homes in the neighborhood. In high school, I’d often walk down the street and hike into the wooded area along that small portion of the Indian River. There, I’d sometimes come across White-tailed Deer drinking from the river as they would pass through the neighborhood and box turtles who lived along the stream but who would, for some reason, often lay their eggs closer to the street. At the time, I did not have the language to describe the Indian River or the Long Island Sound as “ecologically significant areas.” Nor did I think of these local streams and rivers as “wildlife corridors,” per se; however, it is clear now that, as I watched those deer, turtles, and local foxes traverse the Indian River and make their way through portions of neighbors’ fencing to continue their travels through local green spaces and state forest areas, that they were creating their own corridors and paths of connectivity through now-developed areas that offer only partially contiguous landscapes.

This chapter explores some of the emerging theoretical perspectives that I suggest should inform and complement wildlife corridor projects. In it, I describe the ways that wildlife corridor projects may benefit from the inclusion of perspectives grounded in compassionate conservation, entangled empathy, and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Subsequently, this chapter argues for an approach to connectivity and coexistence that rethinks more commonly perceived boundaries and hierarchies in human/nonhuman animal relationships, that works against anthropocentric and hierarchical thinking, and that does not necessarily privilege humans above other species, or privilege one kind of species over another. In short, we must design spaces that allow for people and wildlife to coexist in the Anthropocene.

Compassionate Conservation

Compassionate conservation is an interdisciplinary movement that has steadily gained international attention and momentum in recent years. A compassionate conservation approach, as the University of Technology Sydney's Centre for Compassionate Conservation describes it, “promotes the treatment of all wildlife with respect, justice, and compassion” and is based on the guiding principles of “first, do no harm, individuals matter, inclusivity, and peaceful coexistence.” Moreover, it “aims to find solutions for conservation practitioners that minimise harming wildlife.” When applied to the practice of wildlife corridors, compassionate conservation would advocate for an approach that takes into consideration the lives of all species that may utilize or migrate through specific habitats. It would recognize that wildlife may be affected by the actions of humans, whether intentional or unintentional, as well as by the natural processes affecting the ecosystems that wildlife inhabit. It would then seek to minimize any harm to wildlife to the extent possible, regardless of the purpose behind the action.

Marc Bekoff, a scholar of ecology, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior who initially conceptualized compassionate conservation, likewise advocates for such an approach. He reiterates that the initial step in enacting compassionate conservation is to do no harm, but he also emphasizes a necessary shift in perspective that recognizes animals as sentient, individual beings:

Just east of Salt Lake City, along Route I-80 in Parleys Canyon, Utah, is the recently completed Parleys Summit wildlife crossing. Completed in winter 2018, the crossing at Parleys Summit is the largest wildlife crossing in Utah. The interstate overpass is 50 feet wide and 320 feet long, spanning six lanes of I-80. Three miles of fencing along both sides of the highway create a pathway that guides species to the overpass. Along the overpass, video technology and camera traps record the sights and sounds of “migrating moose, elk, deer, and other animals” as they traverse the freeway that has fragmented their local ecosystem. The overpass has also been used by some unexpected species, such as “bobcats, cougars, coyotes and a yellow-bellied marmot,” and one Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) spokesperson notes: “It's great to see so many different animals using the overpass.”

While the site is still too new to provide any long-term data, the species’ initial responses to the crossing have been encouraging. Local media articles about Parleys Summit convey a range of perspectives on the project and are typically quick to note that the crossing was designed with the safety of both humans and animals in mind. The local organization Save People Save Wildlife had advocated for the crossing since 2016, largely out of concern that “the moose population was beginning to dwindle and drivers were at risk along I-80.” Similarly, a spokesperson for UDOT expresses: “It's exciting to have this done. […] This has been the most talked about UDOT project of the year, rightfully so. It is unique and it is really going to improve the safety of drivers in Parleys Canyon by cutting down on the wildlife and vehicle col-lisions. I think it is really going to make a big difference.” While UDOT also acknowledges the benefits to wildlife, they ultimately emphasize the benefits to humans:

Eight Views of Animal Crossing

A world of talking animals and haute couture, trade and Japanese tea houses, lovingly tended gardens, seasonal weather and sociability, self-fashioning and construction. A world that offers insights about performance, global audiences, intellectual property, gift giving, contract law and play in virtual environments. A world that affirms creativity and non-violent sociability, in contrast to digital platforms that embody destruction, mayhem, toxic masculinity and a hyper-kinetic ‘kill or be killed’ ethos. A world that has enchanted millions of people across the globe – a validation of the world maker's capability – and has attracted diverse demographics on the basis of personal recommendations rather than extensive advertising. A world that gained scholarly attention as a consequence of uptake by consumers in many parts of the world as a source of comfort and delight during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book explores that world, the world of Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It offers a transdisciplinary view of a cultural and commercial phenomenon, including a study of law relating to the operation of Animal Crossing and the virtual world's users.

It is written by an Australian academic with an interest in the interaction of commerce, culture, consumption and law. That interaction is on a global and local scale: from billion-dollar sales to the varying experiences of individual players. The transdisciplinary approach means that it is not intended as a textbook for media and game studies scholars or for lawyers concerned with, for example, intellectual property as a focus of global trade disputes and the dynamics of consumer engagement with copyright. Instead, it resembles two of Japan's iconic cultural productions: Hokusai's 1830–1832 Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and Kurosawa's 1950 Rashomon.

Both Kurosawa and Hokusai offer multiple accounts – different, conflicting and engaging perspectives – of a single landscape or event. They have been emulated by non-Japanese artists, film-makers and authors. The persuasiveness of understanding through different views means that media and communication specialists have come to refer to the ‘Rashomon Effect’ as a shorthand for understanding complexity through a non-linear narrative and conflicting claims regarding truths.

Abstract

The name ‘Italian Theory’ has come to refer to a transformative theoretical-critical turn, after poststructuralism, away from the sovereignty of language and towards the larger semantic horizon of life. The shift has determined a return to/of the conflict between language and the body. This article proposes that Samuel Beckett's play, Not I (1972), feeds such a renewed interest in the body's interference with the governing works of language. The discussion begins by approaching Beckett's text through Émile Benveniste's notions of subjectivity and enunciation, both ambiguously connected and traversed by a dynamic (and visionary) spatial-bodily dimension. Beckett's attunement to Benveniste, in turn, helps relocate the writer in the contemporary debate on the conflict between language and the body. Not I stands out because it is about a physical struggle against speech that suggests Beckett's own search for his own kind of living thought, a thought of ‘movement and vitality’, as he had phrased it in his early essay on predecessors, ‘Dante … Bruno. Vico.. Joyce.’

Keywords: Samuel Beckett; Not I; Émile Benveniste; body; language; Italian Theory

The Scene of Instruction

Not I might be the exemplary Beckett play that Stanley Cavell has in mind in his reflection on the scene of language instruction in Augustine's Confessions. Written in 1972, it holds a special place in the Beckett canon: it is a linguistic play, about the possibility of speech. A spotlit mouth eight feet above the darkened stage speaks across from a compassionate auditor in a hooded djellaba, the traditional garment from North Africa. The ‘breathless, urgent, feverish, rhythmic’ stream of words amplifies the momentous passage from silence to speech. Mouth crosses to her new condition on an April morning, when she initially finds herself ‘in the dark’, able to hear only a ‘buzzing’ resembling a ‘dull roar’ within the skull and see a flickering beam without. Speech comes, trailing along a continuum of sound and light.

Abstract

The Italian painter Gastone Novelli (1925–1968) met Samuel Beckett in Paris in 1960. The encounter was the culmination of Novelli's long-lasting interest in Beckett's work. The two artists established a collaboration that had a significant impact on their works. Novelli realized a series of lithographs designed to accompany L’image (1959), Beckett's pre-publication excerpt from Comment c’est (1961). This partnership (the two met on several occasions, exchanged letters and commented on each other's work) had important consequences on both Beckett's and Novelli's artistic journeys, well beyond the idea (which was never put into print) of L’image as a ‘livre d’artiste’. On the one hand, it entered – and probably changed – the genetic history of Comment c’est. On the other, it reoriented Novelli's idea of painting as language towards the more radical concept of a painting made of – and not accompanied by – words. While retrieving the aural, Joycean quality of Beckett's prose, Novelli established an interesting connection between Beckett's prose, French Nouveau Roman and Italian Neoavanguardia.

Keywords: Letters; images; intermediality; materiality; embodiment

Beckett's relationship with the visual arts, his observations on painting and his collaborative efforts with artists have been widely explored. However, while the less examined role played by Italian art in his work has gained critical attention in recent years, his aesthetic partnership with Gastone Novelli (1925–1968) has yet to be investigated.

The Birth of Novelli's Artistic Vision

Novelli was born in Vienna in 1925, the son of Margherita Mayer von Ketschendorf, a woman belonging to the old Hapsburg nobility, and Ivan Novelli, military attaché at the Italian Embassy in Austria. The family moved to Rome, where Novelli graduated in sociology and political sciences from Sapienza University. His choice of a field of study not directly connected to the visual arts is particularly relevant to Novelli's cultural outlook. He was not a painter by trade, and even when he became one, he kept a sustained interest in political, social and anthropological issues. Another key element in his life is his involvement in the Second World War. When the war broke out, Novelli joined the Resistance. He became a member of a Partisan Brigade operating in Rome. In 1943, he was arrested and tortured by the Nazis.

In the UK, the Chiltern Railways reconstruction project discussed earlier involved adding a bat deterrent lighting system at the Wolvercote Tunnel section of the railway to account for the well-being of resident bats. The lighting installation helped to deter the bats from flying into the tunnel or traveling through the tunnel when a train was approaching. The lighting project thus helped the bats maintain their linear flight paths and specific flyways. Ambient and artificial light can have important and specific impacts not only on bats but also on birds, who may be thrown off course or distracted by different kinds of light. The Chiltern Railways project considered with critical awareness the impact of lighting on resident bats and installed lighting specifically to prevent the bats from entering the Wolvercote Tunnel, where they might otherwise collide with oncoming trains. In that case, the lighting was a helpful deterrent that could help save their lives. In other contexts, however, artificial light pollution can have detrimental effects, especially for species of migrating birds.

In fact, the light emitted from skyscrapers and other buildings in urban environments can be especially hazardous for birds. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, within the United States, an “estimated 600 million birds are killed every year from collisions with some of the country's largest skyscrapers.” In particular, Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; and Dallas, Texas, are among the most dangerous cities in the U.S. for migrating birds. These cities are “uniquely positioned in the heart of North America's most trafficked aerial corridors.” As Hilty et al. note, there has been “some discussion around aero-corridors […] although air space conservation is still in its infancy and terrestrial stepping-stone nonaerial corridors continue to be the focus of connectivity for most flying species.” Indeed, while this book has focused more on the issue of wildlife corridors in specific terrestrial landscapes, aerial corridors are an emerging area of focus for wildlife connectivity, and light pollution is one of the main disruptors for wildlife that must navigate them. This case considers the issue of light pollution and its impacts on aerial corridors for migrating birds and provides some possible suggestions for addressing this issue, with a focus on citizen education and “Lights Out” campaigns as possible starting points.

We decided to write this book for two reasons: (1) as far as we are able to determine, little has been written about hybrid heroes and (2) our insights emanate directly from the work we have done. The three of us started our collaboration with a stream of presentations at The Art of Management & Organization Conference in Brighton, United Kingdom, in September 2018. Though we had Skyped and emailed many times, we did not meet in person until the beginning of the event. As we shared a meal in an outdoor courtyard at a restaurant on a back street, our intellectual bond transformed instantly into friendship.

Inge Brokerhof (PhD) is an organizational psychologist, writer, trainer, and researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In her research, she explores how stories influence career identity, future work selves and moral development and she has worked at Harvard Business School and the University of Bath. For her company, stories-@-work, she offers workshops, presentations, and university lectures about change rhetoric, storytelling, organizational psychology, and business ethics. She has also published short stories, poems, and songs.

Stephan Sonnenburg (Dr.) is a professor of branding, creativity, and innovation management at ICN Business School Paris-Nancy-Berlin. Before his academic career, he worked at advertising agencies and founded a management consulting firm focusing on the power of narratives in digital transformation. He is fond of saying that there is nothing as practical as a good theory, and that principle informs much of what we are trying to accomplish here.

Greg Stone is, in a sense, the “odd man out” as he is the only non-academic. He's an independent communications consultant and author. He has written two business books, one focusing on the power of the villain in storytelling, as well as a new mystery novel called Dangerous Inspiration, profiling a collection of artists who run the spectrum from virtue to violence.