Autumn 2010 English 561: Studies in Fictional and
Nonfictional Narrative Focal Topic: Graphic Narratives
and Narrative Theory Tu-Th 3:30 - 5:18
Denney Hall 214 Instructor:
David Herman Office: 409 Denney (office
hours T-Th 2:15 - 3:15, 5:30 - 6:00, and by
appointment) Phone: 292-6123; e-mail:
herman.145[at]osu.edu
Web address for this syllabus:
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG561-10.html
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course aims to create a dialogue
between two exciting areas within English Studies that arguably have a
lot to contribute to one another: comics studies and narrative theory.
On the one hand, we will bring to bear on graphic narratives ideas
developed by contemporary scholars of story--including ideas about
character, plot, perspective, narrative worlds, the fiction/nonfiction
distinction, the links between storytelling and identity, and other
aspects of narrative and narrative interpretation. On the other hand,
we will also read a range of graphic narratives spanning almost the
whole history of U.S. comics--from George Herriman's Krazy Kat to Alison Bechdel's Fun Home--and explore what
challenges and opportunities these rich, multifaceted texts might pose
for the study of narrative.
The
course is divided into three main
parts. The first part uses Krazy
Kat to introduce some of the key concepts of narrative theory
and underscore their relevance for the study of graphic narratives. The
second part builds on these foundations to examine how comics
creators and their readers jointly engage in acts of narrative
worldmaking, co-constructing storyworlds via
sequences of words and images. The third part focuses on issues
raised by nonfictional comics genres, including graphic life writing
and comics journalism. Overall, the course aims to provide you with new ways of understanding
the structure, uses, and enduring power of storytelling in the comics
medium. REQUIRED TEXTS
Available
at SBX and other area bookstores:
Graphic Narratives
Barry, Lynda. One Hundred Demons.
Seattle:
Sasquatch
Books,
2002;
ISBN:
1570614598 Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.
2006. Boston: Mariner Books, 2007; ISBN 0618871713
Clowes, Daniel. Ghost World.
Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 1997; ISBN: 1560974273 Eisner, Will. The Best of The Spirit. New York:
DC Comics, 2005; ISBN: 1401207553
Green, Justin. The Binky Brown
Sampler. San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1995; ISBN: 0867193328 Herriman, George. Krazy & Ignatz 1929-1930: A Mice, a
Brick, a Lovely
Night. 2nd edition. Seattle Fantagraphics Books, 2008; ISBN: 1-56097-529-6
Moore, Alan, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics,
1987; ISBN: 1401219268
Sacco, Joe. Safe Area Goražde: The
War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-95. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books,
2001; ISBN: 1560974702
Spiegelman, Art. Maus I and II. New York: Pantheon, 1986; 1991;
ISBN: 0394747232 and
0679729771
Comics Theory
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York:
HarperPerennial, 1994; ISBN:
006097625X
Narrative Theory
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge
Introduction to Narrative. 2nd edition only. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2008; ISBN
0521887194 Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. 2nd
edition only. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003; ISBN: 0803287763
Texts available on the internet or via
electronic reserve
A number of texts are either available on the web or have been
placed on e-reserve at the library and can be accessed via the Carmen
site for our course. The e-reserve items are marked "[ER]" in our
course schedule below; please click herefor a full list of and
complete bibliographic citations for these items.
Texts placed on print reserve at the
Science and Engineering Library (SEL)
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure
in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978.
Herman, David, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan, eds. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory.
London:
Routledge,
2005. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative
Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Ryan, Marie-Laure, ed. Narrative
across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 2004.
Web-based Resources
There are 5 basic requirements
for this course, spelled out in more
detail below: (1) participating regularly in class discussions; (2)
posting discussion
questions on the Carmen site for our course; (3) submitting a reading
journal on four different occasions during the quarter;
(4) writing two carefully organized, persuasively argued, and
stylistically polished essays; and (5) taking a comprehensive final
exam at the end of the quarter.
1. Class participation and attendance.To be
successful, this class--in reality, a workshop on how to forge
interconnections between graphic narratives and narrative theory--needs
to be a collective endeavor, and
to that end your attendance and participation are
crucial. You will get more out of each class if you have done
the assigned reading and are prepared to discuss it. For the same
reason, more than two
unexecused absences will lower your grade for the course by one whole
grade: for example, from a B to a C. Furthermore, after four
absences you will receive a failing grade for the class.
2. Posting discussion questions on Carmen. To
facilitate your
preparation and enhance discussion, each student will be required to
post two well-thought-out, carefully articulated discussion
questions on the Carmen site
for our course. Both questions
can be part of the same post, or you can post one question on two
different days. In either case, your questions
need
to be posted at least 24 hours before the class meeting in which we
discuss the item (or items) on which your questions focus. By the same
token, before coming to class
you should give some thought to the questions that others have posted
via Carmen. In
formulating
your questions, you should put one or more of our
assigned readings in narrative theory into dialogue with one of our
graphic narratives. What aspects of the narrative can the theorist's
work help illuminate? Conversely, are there aspects of the text that
present a challenge to the theory?
3. A (digital) reading journal. Four
times
during
the
quarter,
you
will
select
five
of the terms
included in Prince's Dictionary of
Narratology and in a reading journal discuss the relevance of
those terms for one or
more of the graphic narratives that we are reading in that part of the
course.
You
should write
a paragraph for each of the terms, and turn in your journal submissions
via the dropbox function in Carmen. Due dates for submitting your
journal entries are 10/2,
10/16, 11/6, 11/20; these
dates are
also
listed in the course schedule below. Note: be
sure to save a copy of these journal entries because one (or more) of
them might
very well turn out to be the seed for one of your essays for the course.
4. Two essays. These essays
are to be
submitted in
hard copy, not electronically. The first
essay is to be 1000 - 1,250 words and is due Tuesday, October 26.
The
second
essay is to be 1,500 - 2,000
words and
is due the last day of class, Thursday, December 2. Topics
for each essay will be distributed well in advance of its due date. In
the meantime, for general guidelines
concerning how to compose and format your papers, click here.
These papers must represent your own work; all cases
of suspected
plagiarism will be reported, in accordance with university rules, to
the Committee on Academic
Misconduct. Plagiarism and cheating are
serious offenses at OSU and will be
reported to the appropriate officers of the university. Plagiarism is
the representation of another's work or ideas as one's own; it includes
unacknowledged quotations as well as paraphrases of someone else's
words or ideas. Penalties may range from failure of the particular
assignment, to failure of the course, or worse. For more about OSU's
Code for Student Conduct, click here.
5. A final
examination.
The final exam is scheduled for Tuesday, December 7, 3:30 - 5:18, and
will contain
brief
definition questions; questions asking for paragraph-long responses in
which you use ideas from narrative theory to discuss our graphic
narratives; and a longer essay
question asking you to explore broader issues raised by the class.
Completing Assignments:
All assigned readings must be read before the date listed on the
syllabus. All out-of-class assignments are due at the beginning
of class. If an emergency arises and prevents you from turning in
your assignment on time, please contact me as far ahead in advance as
possible. In the absence of any previous
consultation with me, work handed in late will be graded down, normally
one letter grade for each day that it is late.
BASIS FOR
FINAL GRADES
In-class participationand
posting
of
discussion
questions
on
Carmen
=
15%
Reading journals = 20%
First essay = 20%
Second essay = 25%
Final exam = 20% OTHER POLICIES
Cellphones and laptops:
Please make sure that cellphones, Blackberries, etc. are turned off
before
you enter the classroom. Also, although it's fine to use laptops to
take notes
during our class meetings, I would greatly appreciate your not
using your computer to surf the web, update your Facebook site, etc.
Again, the more collaborative and interactive our class discussions
are, the more effective the course will be.
Special needs:
Anyone who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of
a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific
needs. Anyone with such needs should also be
aware of the Office
for Disability Services in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307;
TDD 292-0901) which
provides services for students with documented disabilities.
The Writing Center:
All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss their writing
with a trained consultant at the Writing Center. Go to
http://www.cstw.org or call 688-4291
to make an appointment.
COURSE SCHEDULE
The following is tentative course schedule. Depending on the actual
pace at which we proceed during the quarter, we may have to make
adjustments to the syllabus as we go.
September
Th 23 Introduction to
the course; read Abbott,
chapters 1-3; Prince, entries for
"narrative," "narrativity," and "narratology" in Dictionary; Bruner, "The Narrative
Construction of Reality" [ER]; excerpt
from
Gardner
and
Herman,
Introduction
to
special
issue on "Graphic
Narratives and Narrative Theory" [ER]; Herman, "Storyworld" [ER] Starting to
Put Graphic Narratives into Dialogue with Narrative Theory: A Primer
via Krazy Kat
T 28 Herriman, Krazy Kat,
pages
20-61;
also
read
Abbott,
chapters
4-9;
McCloud, chapters 1-2; Ryan,
"Media and Narrative" [ER]
Th 30 Krazy Kat,
63-109; also read Abbott, chapter 10; McCloud,
chapter
3;
Prince entries on
"actant," "actantial model," and "actantial role" Submit
reading
journals
via
the
dropbox
function
on
Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, October 2
October
Next Steps:
Narrative Worldmaking in Words and Images (or, Exploring the
Storyworlds of The Spirit, Watchmen, and Ghost World)
T 5 Eisner, The Spirit (first
half);
McCloud,
chapters
4-6;
Herman,
"How
to Build a Storyworld" [ER]
Th 7 The Spirit (second half); McCloud,
chapters 7-9; excerpt from chapter 4 of Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art (pages
39-66) [ER]
T 12 Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins, Watchmen, chapters I - IV; Abbott,
chapter 12; Dannenberg, "Counterfactual History" [ER]
Th 14 In lieu of class, attend Michael Tisserand's Lecture on Krazy Kat from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. at
the Festival
of Cartoon Arts (required); if possible, also attend the panel on "Krazy Kat at 100," from 2:45 - 4:15
(suggested)
Submit
reading journals via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, October 16
T 19 Watchmen, chapters
V - IX; also read, Moraru,
"Intertextuality" [ER]; Nelles, "Embedding" [ER]
Th 21 Watchmen,
chapters X - XII; Clowes, Ghost World;
Jahn,
"Focalization"
[ER]
T 26 Ghost World; Allrath and Gymnich, "Gender Studies"
[ER]; Herman and Vervaeck, "Ideology" [ER]; Warhol, "Feminist
Narratology" [ER]; FIRST
ESSAY DUE
Narrative
Worldmaking in Graphic Life Writing and Comics Journalism: Nonfictional
Narration in Binky Brown, Maus, Safe Area Goražde, One Hundred Demons, and Fun Home
Th 28 Green, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (including
Art
Spiegelman's
introduction);
Herman,
"Narrative
Worldmaking
in
Graphic
Life Writing" [ER]
November
T 2 Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary
continued, plus "Apocrypha" (pages 78-90 of Green's text); also read
Spiegelman, Maus I, plus
Ewert, "Reading Visual Narrative" [ER]
Th 4 Maus I continued; also read
Abbott, chapter 11
Submit
reading journals via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, November 6
T 9 Maus II; review of
key concepts via Spiegelman's text
Th 11 No class: Veterans' Day Holiday
T 16 Sacco, Safe Area Goražde
(first half); also read
Abbott, chapters 13 and 14; Dardenne,
"Journalism"
[ER]
Th 18 Safe Area Goražde (second
half);
Doležel, "Fictional and Historical
Narrative" [ER]
Submit
reading journals via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, November 20
T 23 Barry, One Hundred
Demons; Tensuan, "Comic Visions and Revisions" [ER]; Mills,
"Narrative Therapy" [ER]
Th 25 No class: Thanksgiving Holiday
T 30 Bechdel, Fun Home;
Gutenberg, "Coming-out Story" [ER]; Ritivoi,
"Identity
and
Narrative"
[ER];
review of key concepts via
Bechdel's text (continued on 12/2)