ENGL 121

Spring 2020 All Classes

All Classes

Introduction to Comics

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Credit: 3 hours.

Introduction to graphic narratives---comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, and so on---from a diverse panoply of cultural, formal, and historical traditions.

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ENGL 121 class schedule data for spring 2020
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	62333	Lecture-Discussion	E	1:00PM -1:50PM	MWF	English Building	Barrett, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/21/20-05/06/20 Section Info: Super/Human: This course introduces students to the academic study of North American comics by focusing on the two dominant genres of the last five decades: the superhero sagas of the mainstream comics industry and the autobiographical memoirs of the alternative comics movement. These two genres are often compared to one another in terms of binary oppositions: posthuman/human, fantastic/mundane, infantile/mature, trash/culture, commercial/artistic, etc. In ENGL 121, we’ll take a less polarized approach, investigating what the heroes can tell us about the memoirists and vice versa. Our texts will thus come in thematic pairs: we’ll discuss genre origins with Superman: The Golden Age (1938-39) and Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972); war and displacement with Mister Miracle (1971-73) and The Best We Could Do (2018); race and violence with Panther’s Rage (1973-76) and March (2013-16); and gender and body image with Glory (2012-13) and The Story of My Tits (2015). Our rapprochement will culminate in El Deafo (2014), a memoir aimed at YA readers in which the protagonist manages her childhood deafness through the adoption of a Batman-esque alter ego. Over the course of the semester, students should expect to not only learn the formal vocabulary of comics but also to master the interpretation of comics at a variety of scales—from the micro (panels, pages, and sequences) to the macro (pamphlets, books, and series). Assignments will include frequent response papers and two exams.