20th & 21st Century Graphic Novel

Instructors: Dr. Kathleen Merrow and Dr. Lawrence Wheeler

Course Content

We will study the history and development of the graphic novel in the 20th and 21st centuries by making a case study of several significant graphic novels. Our main focus will be on the relationship between form and content in each text, and the way in which each text raises larger questions about the nature and limits of representation.  We will use related materials (handed out in class) in order to situate each text in its intellectual, professional, and historical contexts.

Required Texts

Art Spiegelman, Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale (Pantheon)

Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon reprint 2003)

Grant Morrison and Dave McKean Arkham Asylum  (DC Comics)

Allison Bechdel, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) [release date May 1 2012]

Thierry Groensteen, The System of Comics  (University Press of Mississippi)