American Graphic Memoir

elective courses

Classroom

During this course, we will examine selected American graphic memoirs and ask what exactly makes comics such a fitting medium for the most personal and intimate narratives. Students will learn how to read and analyze comics and graphic memoirs. Focusing both on the format and the content of selected works, we will also study how gender, class, and race function within examined narratives, and how those narratives operate within the broader American cultural context.

Alison Bechdel, the author of the graphic memoir Fun Home, famously stated that “there is something inherently autobiographical about cartooning.” During this course, we will examine selected American graphic memoirs and ask what exactly makes comics such a fitting medium for the most personal and intimate narratives. Students will learn how to read and analyze comics and graphic memoirs. Focusing both on the format and the content of selected works, they will also study how gender, class, and race function within examined narratives, and how those narratives operate within the broader American context.

We will examine both well-established graphic narratives such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, or Craig Thompson’s Blankets, as well as less known autobiographical comics like Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? or Julia Wertz’s The Infinite Wait and Other Stories. Three main themes of the course: coming of age comics, graphic memoirs about the Holocaust, and narratives of illness, represent prevailing trends in the development of graphic memoirs in the US.

Topics:

1. What’s a graphic memoir? An introduction.

2. Does it matter if it’s true? The Impostor’s Daughter

3. Graphic narratives about the Holocaust: Maus

4. Coming of Age (part one): Blankets

5. Coming of Age (part two): Fun Home

6. Coming of Age (part three): Gender Queer

7. Narratives of illness (part one): Stitches

8. Narratives of illness (part two): Hyperbole and a Half

9. Cartooning about death: Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

10. Family stories: The Best We Could Do

11. Questioning self: Passing for Human

12. Drawing about drawing: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist 

13. Cartooning everyday life (part one): The Impossible People

14. Cartooning everyday life (part two): selected webcomics

15. Final exam

Selected comics (subject to change):

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui (2017)

Maus by Art Spiegelman (1980)

Blankets by Craig Thompson (2003)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006)

Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz (2010)

Stitches: A Memoir by David Small (2009)

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh (2013)

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir By Roz Chast (2014)

The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir by Laurie Sandell (2009)

Passing for Human by Liana Finck (2018)

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe (2019)

The Impossible People by Julia Wertz (2023)

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine (2020)

Selected secondary texts (subject to change):

Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels ed. by Michael A. Chaney (2011)

Graphic Women. Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics by Hillary L. Chute (2010)

Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere by Hillary L. Chute (2017)

Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures by Elisabeth El Refaie (2012)

Autobiographical Comics by Andrew J. Kunka (2017)

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (1993)

Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean by Douglas Wolk (2008)

Upon completing the course, a student:

1. Knowledge

- understands how the narrative is built in the medium of comics

- is familiar with the memoir genre

- uses terminology connected with comics studies

2. Skills

- is able to form arguments in discussions on the medium of comics and the memoir genre

- is able to apply knowledge to analyze in-depth a graphic memoir

- is able to discuss topics studied in reference to analyzed works of culture, with focus on coming of age narratives, graphic memoirs about Holocaust, and graphic testimonies of illness

3. Competencies:

- understands the role of graphic memoirs in the American culture

- knows how to participate in a group work

- knows how to write a response paper

20%: Midterm

30%: Participation

30%: Essay

20%: Final test