ENGL 281 - The Comics Course

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as MEDS 281) An exploration of topics in comics history, theory, aesthetics, and politics. Subjects and texts may include: women’s diary comics (Julie Doucet’s My New York Diary and Gabrielle Bell’s July 2011), conflict comics (Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde), graphic horror and representation (Charles Burns’s Black Hole), race and representation (Jennings’ and Duffy’s The Hole: Consumer Culture, Volume 1), genre and gender (Wonder Woman from origins to contemporary permutations), meta-comics (Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan), comics and the culture of children (Schulz’s Peanuts, Jansson’s Moomin, and Barry’s Marlys), comics and sexuality (Carol Swain’s Gast, Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Social Club, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home), disability comics (the Oracle series, Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, and Allie Brosch’s “Hyperbole and a Half”), and comics and silence (Shaun Tan’s The Arrival). Readings also include materials in comics studies, media studies, and literary studies. Peter Antelyes.

Two 75-minute periods.