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Instructors: Oliver Moisich
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Displayed in timetable as:
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Contents:
Surrealist Salvador Dalí is quoted as saying that comics will be the culture of the year 3794. Looking at the medium today, one might be tempted to say that Dalí overshot his estimation. Comics have developed in many directions – graphic novels, drawn biographies, and journalism in pictorial form share bookshelves with more “classical” literature. Meanwhile, academics have started to acknowledge the complexity of comics and scrutiny of its formal features, its semantics, and its narrative have become popular topics among scholars.
This course will serve as an overview of comics in American history, from humble beginnings in newspaper magazines at the start of the 20th century to their overwhelming popularity one hundred years later. We will examine short comic strips, medium-length comic books, and longer graphic novels, and discuss their impact on American culture and societal issues such as (but not restricted to) race, gender, politics, and sexuality.
Literature:
The seminar will be heavy on reading both primary and secondary literature, so make sure to prepare the relevant material for each course beforehand. A reader with all the shorter material necessary for this seminar will be made available shortly before the start of the semester. We will figure out how to get the longer works during the first session.
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