ENGL 390 (Topics in Word & Image): Transformations

Professor Paul Watkins
Location: Nanaimo 345, classroom 207
Class Hours: Tu; Th 4:00- 5:20 pm
Office Hours: Th 2-3 pm
Email: paul.watkins@viu.ca
Phone: 2118
Office: 359, 101

All things are alter’d, nothing is destroy’d
– Ovid, Metamorphoses

Did your mother ever tear up your comic books? Did you ever receive warnings about how comic books were going to ruin your mind? Were you given lectures about how comics were cheap trash put out by evil men?
-Robert Crumb

In this course, we will investigate intersections between word and image, and occasionally add sound to the mix. We will explore a range of media primarily in the emergent canon of graphic novels, although a variety of other illustrated texts, adaptations, source materials, and cinematic representations of literary themes will converge while we look at what a medium is and explore the distinctive formal features of visual/textual confluences.

Along the way, we will ask questions about how graphic texts test the limits of literature, and we will explore the close relationship between popular culture and art. For example, what constitutes a book or literature, and more importantly, how do new media (particularly popular ones like graphic novels) relate to questions of personal, literary, and social transformation? If the medium is changing, does that mean we are as well? Given autobiography is a major theme of this course, we will look at how comics function as a medium that allows for personal stories to take shape and even change public perception around major historical figures and events. We will also investigate how certain aesthetic movements shape word and image, looking at a range of work in the field of graphica and more.

Students will share their own experiences with graphic texts and there will be a creative intervention project. We will also tweet our responses as we read/watch/listen using the hashtag #English390.

Texts:

Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage (Gingko Pr Inc., online on D2L)
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Avon)
Art Spiegelman, Maus: “I: My Father Bleeds History” (Panthenon Books)
Kid Koala, Space Cadet (no text required, in-class viewing)
Andrew Helfer (ed.) & Randy DuBurke (art), Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography (Hill & Wang)
Michael Yahgulanaas, Red: A Haida Manga (Douglas & McIntyre; Also available for FREE on the library website as an eBook)
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Pantheon)
Peter Kuper, Metamorphosis (Broadway Books)
Eric Drooker and Allen Ginsberg (words), Howl (HarperCollins)
David Lynch, Twin Peaks (no text required, selected episodes screened during class)

Evaluation:

Participation 5%
Short Essay 1 (750-1000 words) 10%
Short Essay 2 (1000-1250 words) 15%
Creative Intervention (w/ 500 word write up) 15%
Research Essay (2500-3000 words) 30%
Final Exam 25%

Schedule:

Please note that this schedule is subject to change as the term progresses.

Jan 5
Introduction; course outline; standards and expectations

Rolling Stone, The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels
Doctoral dissertation in graphic novel form
“Alan Moore attacks Frank Miller in comic book war of words”
“Margaret Atwood is working on her first graphic novel series“

Jan 7
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage (on D2L)

Lecture by McLuhan on “The Medium is the Message”
7 Forgotten Women Surrealists Who Deserve To Be Remembered

Jan 12
McLuhan continued (excerpt from Understanding Media); selected scenes from Blade Runner

“Blade Runner Started as a Comic“

David Bowie, “Lazarus“

Jan 14
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (chapters 1-2)

Scott McCloud’s homepage
TED Talk by McCloud on “The Visual Magic of Comics“
2000 interview with Scott McCloud.
2003 Interview with Scott McCloud
2007 Interview with Scott McCloud
Blog post by Aaron Muszalski on McCloud’s Understanding Comics
“Talking Comics with Scott McCloud”
“On the Problem of Form” by Kandinsky

Jan 19
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (chapters 3-5)

Read “Inventing Comics” by Dylan Horrocks
On Osamu Tezuka
Doctor Who on Time.
Comic for Blind People

Jan 21
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (chapters 6-9)

Jan 26
Art Spiegelman, Maus (chapters 1-3)
Read Jonathan Kincade’s “Art Spiegelman’s Maus” on D2L

Audio: Of ‘Maus’ and Spiegelman
Why Mice?

Jan 28
Art Spiegelman, Maus (chapters 4-6)
Maus, Part II (pages 41-46, here)
Read Rosemary V. Hathaway’s “Reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus as Postmodern Ethnography” on D2L
Short Essay 1 due

“Life After Maus“
“Art Spiegelman Breaks His Silence on Israel“
“Legendary Cartoonist Robert Crumb on the Massacre in Paris“
“‘Cartoonist Lives Matter’: Art Spiegelman Responds to Charlie Hebdo Attack, Power of Cartoons”
“Art Spiegelman: Je Suis Charlie“
“An Open Letter to Art Spiegelman by Kim O’Connor”
“Charlie Hebdo Is Heroic and Racist“