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The present course on reading and understanding the graphic novel is conceived as to give students the opportunity of learning about one of the fastest growing literary phenomena of the past decades. The aim of the lectures is, firstly, to provide the attendants with a socio-historical context to be able to understand the evolution and the changes of the comic medium; secondly, in a seminar approach, to go through critical and theoretical tools to analyze iconotexts from different perspectives, reinforcing theories with a pathway of close readings of European and American masterpieces. The final aim of the course is to gain enough verbo-visual literacy as to be able to have a clear idea of concepts like styles, themes, influences, inter- and transmedia, as well as adaptation issues.
For this year's proposal, more attention will be paid to those interdisciplinary approaches aimed at highlighting how contemporary social issues are channeled through the multimodal medium of the graphic novel, as well as to the development of a medium-conscious criticism of graphic narratives. Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (10.01.2025)
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The course is aimed at creating a pathway of critical analysis and discussion about the graphic novel, offering students both an historical overview of the artistic and social conjunctures that have led to the emergence of graphic novels and the theoretical tools that are necessary to read and comment on diverse artworks. The close reading sessions will offer a chance to confront directly with the pages of masterpieces that come from some prolific strands of graphic narratives from Europe and US, discussing the medium-specific treatment of time and space in the graphic novel and addressing thematic cores such as autobiography, gender, feminism, collective history, memory, disease, mythology, environments and the way they are displayed in such a hybrid medium. By the end of the course, the students should possess a broad mental map of the history and the development of this verbo-visual art, being able to locate the graphic novel format within the vast galaxy of the comic art and to discuss about the interconnections (and the differences) between graphic novels and other media. They will also gain knowledge and critical insight about worldwide acclaimed masterpieces that have marked a turning point in the recent history of the ninth art.
Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (10.01.2025)
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The course will be worth 5 credits. Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (28.05.2024)
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Primary literature Auster Paul; Mazzucchelli David; Karasik Paul, City of glass, London, Faber and Faber, 2005. Bechdel Alison, Fun Home. A family tragicomic, London, Jonathan Cape, 2006. Buzzati Dino, Poem strip. Including an explanation of the Afterlife (translation by Marina Harss), New York, NYRB Classics, 2009. McGuire Richard, Here, London, Hamish Hamilton, 2014. Roca Paco, Wrinkles, London, Knockabout Comics, 2015. Sacco Joe, Palestine, Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 2001. Satrapi Marjane, Persepolis I and II: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return, London, Random House, 2008. Spiegelman Art, The complete Maus, London, Penguins, 2003. Secondary literature Baetens Jan; Frey Hugo, The graphic novel. An introduction, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2015. Extracts from: Del Rey Cabero E., Goodrum M., Morlesín Mellado J. ,How to Study Comics & Graphic Novels: A Graphic Introduction to Comics Studies, Oxford, Oxford Comics Network, 2021. McCloud, S., Understanding comics (The invisible art), New York, HarperCollins, 1993. Other: Essays on selected topics. Multimedia material. Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (03.05.2025)
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The course will be structured in 12 classes; frontal lectures will altern with seminar classes of group discussions of themes and topics from the selected corpus and with exercises of analysis and close reading. Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (16.02.2025)
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The purpose of this course is to offer an insight and a critical traversal of the graphic novel, a storytelling medium which has come to depart prototypically from the serial comic strip. Graphic novel has made its way in the academic environments due to its achieved popularity, its practices of elevation to literary forms (novelization), and its data of production, distribution and reading across the world. The centrality of the commodity criterion in the definition of the format does not, however, invalidate the recognizability of peculiar characteristics in terms of form, storytelling devices, authorship and themes. The course will be divided into two sections. After an introductory class aimed at equipping students with the most important notions on the semiotics of iconotexts, we will start with the historical overview and critical commentaries by Baetens and Frey Graphic Novel: An Introduction to approach the developments and the changes undergone by the US comics and the European Bande Dessinée, tracing a porous map of influences until reaching present times. Towards the half of the course, we will formerly define what do we commonly mean with the expression ‘graphic novel’; latterly, we will discuss the forms of reading and theorizing it, navigating through semiotic, formalist, narratological and sociological approaches. Through the second part of the course, we will adopt a close reading approach to analyze some masterpieces from XX and XXI century. In the first place, we will give an overview to the US and European industry, discussing the themes and the forms that have prevailed and those which constitute a minor (but wealthy) space. Despite the fact we will narrow our analysis down to Italian, French, Spanish and Anglo-Saxons case studies, considering popular works of acclaimed artists like Spiegelman, Satrapi, Sacco, Buzzati, Paco Roca, Bechdel, Mazzucchelli, Karasik, McGuire, we will carve out time to discuss multiple transnational texts which channel instances of political, identity, ecological urgency. Session I Visual literacy and semiotics; a brief history of verbo-visuality through times. Session II The circumstances of a success: from the satirical strip to the graphic novel constellation. Session III Graphic novel, mode d’emploi : a prototypical definition. Formalist, semiotic, narratological approaches. Session IV Theory of production of meaning in graphic novels. Session V - An introduction to time in graphic novels; - The question of reality and aesthetics; - Art Spiegelman’s Maus: history, postmemory and metalepsis. Session VI Graphic journalism: Joe Sacco’s Palestine. Session VII Autobiographical voices: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. Session VIII A forerunner of the graphic novel: Dino Buzzati’s Poem strip (Poema a fumetti). Session IX Drawing lost memories: Paco Roca’s Wrinkles (Arrugas). Session X The unique spatiality of comics and the vertigo of postmodernism: Karasik and Mazzucchelli’s City of Glass. Session XI Graphic narratives of the Anthropocene: Richard McGuire’s Here and miscellaneous extracts. Session XII Final considerations on medium-specificity and conclusion of the course. Last update: Simone Chiara, MA (03.05.2025)
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The course is intended for international students of both bachelor’s and master’s degree who wish to approach or deepen their graphic novel literacy and to gain insight about the evolution of the comics form. Due to its extensive coverage of history and theories of analysis of the medium, no previous knowledge of the topic is required to attend the course and to pass the exam. Last update: Štichauer Pavel, prof. Mgr., Ph.D. (05.11.2023)
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