Our concern in this class will be less with superheroes and more with the way in which the graphic novel engages the representation of global sites of conflict and atrocity. Beginning with the Jewish Holocaust and working our way to Iran, Rwanda, and New York on 9/11, we shall examine how the graphic novel takes up such ethical problems as the limits of representation, the relationship between fiction and testimony, as well as that between generational trauma, memory, and mourning. We shall also deal with questions of moral responsibility and
accountability with regard to acts of torture and genocide. The class concludes with an examination of historical and contemporary trauma, including sexual trauma, in America. While these will be our predominant concerns, we shall also look into how graphic novels self-referentially comment upon their process of artistic composition as well as upon the very form of the comic itself.

For those who declared in Fall 2023 or later, this course can fulfill one of two subject area requirements for the English major:
-Literature and the Social
-Form, Media, Expression