Liberal Arts

Graphic Narratives

Course No. LLC419.1  Credits: 3
Faculty Bradley Ricca

Are you fascinated by the graphic novel (or nonfiction)? In this class, we will investigate a variety of ways that texts and images (specifically illustrations and photographs) interact to tell stories: how the visual and the verbal engage and catalyze each other, how they can reflect and inflect, reinforce, strengthen and gesture to each other in compelling, powerful and meaningful ways. To this end, the class will examine and practice different methods used in telling both personal and fictional stories. The course will also involve working at understanding different ways that graphic narratives have been, and may be, theorized. Assignments will include critical responses to our readings and a creative project involving an integration of writing and visual media. Primary readings are likely to include, but are not limited to, work by: Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Craig Thompson, and others. Films we watch may include Spirited Away, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, and Rashomon. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course or Visual Culture Emphasis course. 3 credits.