English 270 - RACE AND THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

This course engages critical literary analysis through an examination of the construction and reimagining of race through graphic novels. Visual representations of race have long constructed the meaning of race, as well as been a critical tool for people assert new meanings. How have writers used this genre to explore their experiences of racialization and talk about social inequalities and racial difference? What knowledge, ideas and affects emerge from reading the medium of graphic novels, and what makes the form unique? We will employ close reading and analyze the relationship between written narrative and the visual image.