English 165

Book List

Barry, Lynda: One! Hundred! Demons!; Bechdel, Alison: Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama; Bechdel, Alison: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic; Chast, Roz: Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir; McCloud, Scott: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art; Sacco, Joe: Palestine; Satrapi, Marjane: Persepolis; Spiegelman, Art: Maus, Volumes I and II; Yang, Gene Luen: American Born Chinese

Other Readings and Media

Reader (scholarly essays on comics and memoir).

Description

A graphic novel is often defined as “a single-author, book-length work, meant for a grown-up reader, with a memoirist or novelistic nature, usually devoid of superheroes.”  Many comic artists, however, ridicule the term as a pretentious and disingenuous attempt to rebrand comics in order to elevate their cultural status.  We will examine the definitions, history, and diverse forms of graphic narratives in the U.S., focusing on graphic memoirs.

This class is open to English majors only.