Session 0Orientation: Between the Visible and the Invisible
Begin here: the seminar’s frame, method, and shared vocabulary.
- Enrollment
- Not open yet · Express interest
- Format
- Comics, each session paired with theory
- Sessions
- Orientation, then twelve, (mostly) bimonthly
- Evaluation
- Optional, on request
The graphic as form, rupture, and world
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp quipped that America’s only works of art were “her bridges and her plumbing.” A century later, Neil Kendricks, Film Curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, argued that “jazz and comics” should be included in this list of uniquely American aesthetic idioms.
In this Academy module, we will follow Kendricks’ lead and read the comic book or “graphic novel,” like jazz music, as revealing both a secret history of our world and the history of a secret world: from the cartoon mirror of the “world of being” in stories about superheroes, monsters, and other fantastical creatures, to the “world of becoming” glimpsed only in the creative process, imaginative acts, and desire’s perseverance.
We will address such questions as: How do comics, as sequential art, work? What is the relation between color and line, the continuous and the discrete, image and text, graphic and explicit, comics and the comical? When and how do comics reflect dominant values and ideals, and when and how do they challenge or subvert them? Where do comics position their readers/viewers, and where do they position their creators? Why do images have the power to appeal to or appall us? And what are the links between comics and other art forms?
One meeting, two readings, one conversation
This module will consist of (mostly) bimonthly sessions. In the first session, I will provide an orientation to the overall module and then lecture on the next session’s readings.
Each session thereafter will have two readings — a comic paired with a critical or philosophical essay — and will be organized into two parts: in the first part, an open-ended conversation about the session’s texts; in the second part, a lecture on the upcoming session’s readings.
Syllabus
Session 1Designing the Visual
Graphic / primary reading
Understanding ComicsScott McCloud
Design / critical reading
Graphic Design: The New BasicsEllen Lupton
Session 2The Comical
Primary works
WilsonDaniel Clowes
Boy’s ClubMatt Furie
Theoretical text
To come
Session 3The Imaginal World
Primary work
PersepolisMarjane Satrapi
Theoretical text
Henry Corbin, “Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal”
Session 4The Dark Knight
Primary works
Batman: Year OneFrank Miller
Batman: The Killing JokeAlan Moore
Batman: Arkham AsylumGrant Morrison
Theoretical text
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” from Image–Music–Text
Session 5Chiaroscuro: Sex and Shadow
Primary work
Black HoleCharles Burns
Theoretical text
To come
Session 6Repetition and Remembering
Primary works
Fun Home: A Family TragicomicAlison Bechdel
The Magic FishTrung Le Nguyen
Theoretical text
Robin Lydenberg, “Reading Lessons in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic”
Session 7Growing Up
Primary work
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on EarthChris Ware
Theoretical text
To come
Session 8Aging Down
Primary work
Asterios PolypDavid Mazzucchelli
Theoretical text
To come
Session 9Going Sideways
Primary work
Why Don’t You Love Me?Paul Rainey
Theoretical text
To come
Session 10Fear’s Forms
Primary works
Through the WoodsEmily Carroll
InfidelPornsak Pichetshote
Theoretical text
Eugenie Brinkema, “A Genreless Horror,” from Journal of Visual Culture
Session 11After Too Late
Primary works
The CageMartin Vaughn-James
NamelessGrant Morrison
ChronosisReza Negarestani and Robin Mackay
Theoretical texts
Domingos Isabelinho, “The Ghost of a Character: The Cage by Martin Vaughn-James,” from Indy Magazine
Eugenie Brinkema, “Horrere Or,” from Life-Destroying Diagrams
Nadia Bou Ali and Ray Brassier, “After Too Late: The Endgame of Analysis,” from Problemi International
Session 12The End, Again
Primary / audiovisual work
The World of TomorrowDon Hertzfeldt
Theoretical text
Rebecca Schneider, “Hello Dolly Well Hello Dolly: The Double and Its Theatre,” from Psychoanalysis and Performance
Express interest
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