English R1A

Book List

Baker, Kyle: Nat Turner; Bechdel, Alison: Fun Home; Clowes, Daniel: Ghost World; Moore, Alan and Gibbons, Dave: Watchmen; Rankine, Claudia: Citizen; Sacco, Joe: Palestine; Tomine, Adrian: Shortcomings;

Recommended: Carson, Anne: Nox

Other Readings and Media

Reader including works by John Keats, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, W.H. Auden, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Scott McCloud, and others. Film adaptations TBD.

Description

This class will look at a variety of works that combine image and text to tell stories. How, we will ask, do words and images play with, against, or off of one another when we read these hybrid texts? How has their combination helped authors alternately to create fantastical new worlds, document the painfully or playfully quotidian, or navigate very real and frequently traumatic personal and national histories? What special demands do these forms make on their readers? What narrative and thematic possibilities do they open up?

In this course, you will be asked to write several short essays of increasing length in order to develop your academic reading and writing skills. We will work on reading critically, posing analytical questions, and crafting and supporting well-reasoned arguments through both these papers and additional in-class exercises. Students will be asked to draft, revise, and peer-review their written assignments over the course of the semester.