FYS 12 Comic Book Nation: A Survey of American Graphic Literature
Comic books were once considered an intellectual and moral threat to young people. Today, “graphic narrative" is a celebrated and lucrative medium supported by a mainstream apparatus of publication and criticism. We will study the history of this hybrid, word-and-picture medium, in the United States from its origins as disposable children's fare to its current array of serious adult genres: novels and short stories, memoir, documentary journalism, and biography. For comparison, some attention may be given to foreign texts in translation. This course should be particularly attractive to students interested in the creative arts and humanities, but the variety of texts and topics should appeal to students with broad topical interests in 20th-century U.S. history and culture. Open only to first-year frosh.