LFU:online

Institut für Amerikastudien Institut für Amerikastudien

Mag. Dr. Erwin Feyersinger Mag. Dr. Erwin Feyersinger

610011

Discourse/Identity: American Cultures: Comics and Graphic Novels

PS 2

5

wöch.

semestral

Englisch

The aim of this course is to familiarize students with methods of analyzing and contextualizing various types of graphic narrative.

In this course we will focus on graphic narrative, one of the most popular American art forms. We will explore its various types (caricature and editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, underground comix, graphic novels, webcomics, etc.) and its various topics and concerns (social and political criticism, issues of gender and race, subjective expression, metareferential deconstruction, eroticism, fantasy, superheroes, etc.). We will develop a critical framework for analyzing comics and graphic novels. The course will investigate their unique combination of visual and verbal storytelling, notions of seriality and sequentiality as well as influences from and on other media and other cultures. Works discussed in this course include _The Yellow Kid_ (Richard F. Outcault, 1895-1898), _Little Nemo_ (Winsor McCay, 1905-1927), _The Spirit_ (Will Eisner, 1940-), _Spider-Man_ (Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, 1962-), _Zap Comix_ (Robert Crumb, 1968-2005), _Watchmen_ (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, 1986-1987), ¬_Maus_ (Art Spiegelman, 1991), _Understanding Comics_ (Scott McCloud, 1993), _Palestine_ (Joe Sacco, 2001), _Scott Pilgrim_ (Bryan Lee O'Malley, 2004-2010), and _xkcd_ (Randall Munroe, 2005-).

Lecture inputs, research, presentations, discussion

Active participation, written analyses, presentation, research paper (10–15 pages)

Anmeldevoraussetzung/en im BA: positive Beurteilung des Pflichtmoduls 19 Anmeldevoraussetzung im Lehramtsstudium: VO2: Introduction to American Literary Studies Entspricht im Lehramtsstudium (344): PS2: American Culture

04.03.2013