Graphic Literature has become a significant and respected mode of literature, and it covers considerable space in American Book Stores. And although it is a diverse and versatile mode, which extends from Superhero Comics to Queer Autobiography, it still appears to be geared toward niche, radical (and sometimes reactionary), critical, and marginalized contexts. In this class we will read a selection of Graphic narratives/essays and look at the strategies of the graphic mode (textual track/visual track and the interactions between them; the possibilities of an icon between total abstraction and realistic photograph; the management of time in and between panels; the significance of the gutter as a blanc space; composition and graphic styles; speech baloons and text boxes; etc.) and their function within the respective texts. We will start with the classical Maus, proceed to the (meanwhile also classical) Fun Home and then look at 4 more recent texts of quite different looks and contents. At the end, we will hopefully understand the possibilities of the genre a little bit better than before. There will be a Moodle site for this class: key is "Scream Queen".
Texts in this class: (The excerpts from the last two books will be provided)
Art Spiegelman, Maus. A Survivor's Tale (1986)/ Maus. And Here My Troubles Began (1991)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
Ho Che Anderson, Sand & Fury (2010)
Marinaomi, Turning Japanese (2016)
Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco, Days of Destruction/Days of Revolt (2012) (Excerpts)
Miriam Libicki, Toward a Hot Jew (2016) (Excerpts)
Requirements:
In-class you will have to organize one meeting together with the instructor (this includes being present in the other meetings on the same text!!!!). The Module Exam (MAP) is a multi-media presentation on a related topic or one of the texts from the class in Module 6 or a book review in Modules 9 or 10 (in one of your seminars). |
