!

AMERICAN STUDIES______________________

THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

_____________________FLORIAN GRO, M.A.

!!

Tue: 12:00 AM 2:00 PM

Room: 1502, 609
AmerF4 (5 CP)
Intermediate Literature and Culture

Phone: 0511-762-4381
florian.gross@engsem.uni-hannover.de
Office Hours: Mon &Wed 11 AM -1 PM
Office: 1502, 635

Comics have grown up - or so it seems. The medium has become the subject of increasing scholarly and critical
concern, but even though most comics continue to be published in serialized form as comic books, the texts that
get the most academic and critical attention belong to a comparatively small canon of texts commonly labeled
graphic novel. With the graphic novel, a new form of sequential art (Eisner) has become established, one that is
often read as being more sophisticated, serious, and thus better than the supposedly standard superhero fare. To
get a grip on the phenomenon, we will start by considering the question what exactly this graphic novel is and
how it is (not so) different from other forms of comics. We will also look at the history of U.S. comics and
analyze programmatic and critical writing by contemporary American comic authors and critics as well as read
and discuss several graphic novels (A Contract with God, Maus, Watchmen, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth).

!All texts with the exception of Maus, Watchmen, and Jimmy Corrigan are in the reader, which can be picked up from

Tuesday, October 19, in the copy shop Stork, Krnerstrae 3, 30159 Hannover (Phone: 0511-1611890) by
students registered for this class. Please purchase Maus (ISBN 978-0141014081), Watchmen (978-1401222666) and
Jimmy Corrigan (ISBN: 978-0375714542) as soon as possible. For further literature, see me.

!C R
:
!S
: regular attendance, reading (quizzes), abstract (in case of PL)
!P
I
L
C
: term paper (8-10 pages, approx.
3,000 words)
!The T P for the Prfungsleistung is due on March 7, 2011 and will be corrected until the end of the
month.
!Each student aiming for a P
is required to submit a written
for your research
OURSE

EQUIREMENTS

TUDIENLEISTUNGEN
RFUNGSLEISTUNG

ERM

NTERMEDIATE

ITERATURE AND

ULTURE

APER

RFUNGSLEISTUNG

ABSTRACT

project by JANUARY 18, 2011 and talk to me personally about it in the final week of the semester (or earlier).
This abstract has to include a (provisional) title, a thesis, a general outline, and an annotated bibliography using
MLA style and containing 5-10 entries that are relevant for your project. Please note that, although they may be
helpful for certain purposes, Wikipedia or other general dictionaries (like Brockhaus or Encarta) are no academic
sources and do not count as references.

!Concerning the

LAYOUT of the term paper and abstract, use either Times New Roman or Garamond typefaces,
set all margins to 2,5 cm and use 1.5 spaced lines. All further points regarding layout and academic writing are
explained at length in the MLA-Handbook. Please check the Richtlinien Literatur-/Kulturwissenschaft:
Hausarbeiten and the English Seminar stylesheet at http://www.engsem.uni-hannover.de/richtlinien.html when
conceiving and writing your paper.

!Please check STUD.IP for further information, updates and course material.

!
S
!
O
!

YLLABUS
CTOBER

19

OCTOBER 26

INTRODUCTION
DEFINING COMICS & COMICS (AS?) ART
Scott McCloud, Introduction, Setting the Record Straight, The Six Steps, 1, 2-23, 162-184.

NOVEMBER 2

COMICS HISTORY I - THE BEGINNINGS

Frank Kelleter & Daniel Stein, Great, Mad, New. Populrkultur, serielle sthetik und der frhe
amerikanische Zeitungscomic, 81- 117.

NOVEMBER 9

COMICS HISTORY II - THE GOLDEN AGE OF SUPERHEROES AND BEYOND

Robert C. Harvey, Legions in Long Underwear. The Advent of the Comic Book and the Reign
of the Superhero, 16-24, 29-49 (24-29 optional)

NOVEMBER 16

COMICS HISTORY III - INDEPENDENT & ALTERNATIVE COMIX

Charles Hatfield, Comix, Comic Shops, and the Rise of Alternative Comics, Post 1968, 3-31.

NOVEMBER 23

ENTER THE GRAPHIC NOVEL - A CONTRACT WITH GOD

Will Eisner, Preface, A Contract With God, ix-xxiv, 1-61.

NOVEMBER 30

THE NEXT LEVEL OF GRAPHIC STORYTELLING?: MAUS I

Art Spiegelman, Maus
Hillary Chute, The Shadow of a Past Time: History and Graphic Representation in Maus,
199-230.

DECEMBER 7

REPRESENTING THE UNREPRESENTABLE: MAUS II

Maus contd

DECEMBER 14

METICULUOUS SYMMETRIES: WATCHMEN I

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
Douglas Wolk, Alan Moore: The House of the Magus, 228-245 (245-257 optional)

JANUARY 4

ALTERNATIVE SUPERHEROES: WATCHMEN II

Watchmen contd

JANUARY 11

SEARCHING FOR DAD, BAFFLING THE READER: JIMMY CORRIGAN I

Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth
Martha B. Kuhlman and David M. Ball, Introduction: Chris Ware and the Cult of Difficulty,
ix-xix (xix-xiii optional)
Jacob Brogan, Masked Fathers: Jimmy Corrigan and the Superheroic Legacy, 14-27.

JANUARY 18

APEX OR DEAD END?: JIMMY CORRIGAN II

!J

David M. Ball, Chris Wares Failures, 45-61.

25

!F

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth contd

ANUARY

EBRUARY

WHITHER THE GRAPHIC NOVEL, WHITHER COMICS?

Douglas Wolk, What Comics Are and What They Arent, 3-16, 24-28 (16-24 optional)
Charles Hatfield, Whither the Graphic Novel?, 152-163
CONCLUSION

SELECTED LITERATURE & SOURCES

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11 July 2008. <http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,542579,00.html>
BAETENS, Jan, ed. The Graphic Novel. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2001. Print.
BALL, David M. and Martha B. KUHLMAN, eds. The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking.
Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2010. Print.
BARKER, Martin. Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1989.
Print.
BARON, Lawrence. X-Men as J Men: The Jewish Subtext of a Comic Book Movie. Shofar: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 22.1 (2003): 44-52. Print.
BASKIND, Samantha, and Ranen OMER-SHERMAN. The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches. New
Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2008. Print.
BEHLMAN, Lee. The Escapist: Fantasy, Folklore, and the Pleasures of the Comic Book in Recent
Jewish-American Holocaust Fiction. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 22.3
(2004): 56-71. Print.
BERNARD, Mark and James Bucky CARTER. Alan Moore and the Graphic Novel: Confronting the
Fourth Dimension. ImageTexT 1.2 (Fall 2004). Web. <http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/
archives/v1_2/carter/>
BOSMAJIAN, Hamida. The Orphaned Voice in Art Spiegelmans Maus I & II. Literature and Psychology
44.1-2 (1998): 1-22. Print.
BREDEHOFT, Thomas A. Comics Architecture, Multidimensionality, and Time: Chris Wares Jimmy
Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth. MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 52.4 (Winter 2006): 869-890.
Print.
CHABON, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. 2000. New York: Picador, 2001. Print.
______. Kids Stuff, Maps and Legends. Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands. San Francisco:
McSweeneys, 2008. 87-96. Print.
______. The Killer Hook. Howard Chaykins American Flagg!, Maps and Legends. Reading and Writing
Along the Borderlands. San Francisco: McSweeneys, 2008. 97-106. Print.
______. Thoughts on the Death of Will Eisner, Maps and Legends. Reading and Writing Along the
Borderlands. San Francisco: McSweeneys, 2008. 141-4. Print.
CHUTE, Hillary. The Shadow of a Past Time: History and Graphic Representation in Maus. Twentieth
Century Literature 52.2 (Summer 2006): 199-230. Print.
______. Ragtime, Kavalier & Clay, and the Framing of Comics. MFS Modern Fiction Studies 54.2 (2008)
268-301. Print.
CHUTE, Hillary, and Marianne DEKOVEN. Introduction: Graphic Narrative. MFS Modern Fiction
Studies 52.4 (Winter 2006): 767-82. Print.
CORY, Mark. Comedic Distance in Holocaust Literature. Journal of American Culture 18.1 (1995):
35-40. Print.
COUCH, Chris. The Publication and Formats of Comics, Graphic Novels, and Tankobon, Image &
Narrative 1.1 (2000). Web. <http://www.imageandnarrative.be/narratology/chriscouch.htm>
DITSCHKE, Stephan. Comics als Literatur. Zur Etablierung des Comics im deutschsprachigen
Feuilleton seit 2003. Comics. Zur Geschichte eines populrkulturellen Mediums. Eds. Stephan
Ditschke, Katerina Kroucheva, Daniel Stein. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009. 265-80. Print.
DITSCHKE, Stephan, Katerina KROUCHEVA and Daniel STEIN, eds. Comics. Zur Geschichte und Theorie
eines populrkulturellen Phnomens. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009. Print.
DOHERTY, Thomas. Art Spiegelmans Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust. American Literature 68.1
(1996): 69-84. Print.
DUNCAN, Randy and Matthew. J. SMITH. The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture. New York:
Continuum, 2009. Print.
EISNER, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. 1985. New York: Norton, 2008. Print.
FEIFFER, Jules. The Great Comic Book Heroes. 1965. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2003. Print.
FINGEROTH, Danny. Disguised as Clark Kent. Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. New York:
Continuum, 2007. Print.
______. The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels. London and New York: Rough Guides, 2008. Print.

GABILLIET, Jean-Paul. Of Comics and Men. A Cultural History of American Comic Books. 2005. Trans. Bart
Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2010. Print.
GEIS, Deborah R. Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelmans Survival Tale of the Holocaust.
Tuscaloosa: U Alabama P, 2003. Print.
GIESA, Felix. Graphic Novel. Between the Punk and the Curator. satt.org. May 2008. Web. 25 March
2009. <http://www.satt.org/comic/08_05_gn.html>
GRAVETT, Paul. Graphic Novels. Everything You Need to Know. New York: Collins, 2005. Print.
GROENSTEEN, Thierry. The System of Comics. 1999. Trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson: UP of
Mississippi, 2007. Print.
______. Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization? A Comics Studies Reader. Eds. Jeet
Heer, Kent Worcester. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2009. 3-11. Print.
HAJDU, David. The Ten-Cent Plague. The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. 2008. New
York: Picador, 2009. Print.
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HATFIELD, Charles. Alternative Comics. An Emerging Literature. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2005. Print.
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______. Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory. The Yale Journal of
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Print.
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______. History of the Comic Strip. Vol. 2: The Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: U of California P, 1990.
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______. The 101 Best Graphic Novels. New York: Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine, 2005. Print.
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