ENG 311: Autobiographical Writing: The Graphic Novel Autobiography
Focus: DA, Ethics, WI
SPRING 2023 `
MWF: 2:30-3:20 pm @KUY 407
Office Hours: by appointment
Instructor: Nandini Chandra
nc8@hawaii.edu
Course Description:
This class introduces you to autobiographical writing via the medium of the graphic novel. Many graphic novels use the first-person narrative voice, but in this course, we examine graphic narratives that are explicitly autobiographical: graphic-novel autobiographies. The graphical, visually sketched part of the narrative arguably gives these narratives something ordinary autobiographical writing lacks: the tensions between word and image make self-caricature and irony virtually intrinsic to the form. Moreover, the presentation of the self through sequential images evokes the fragmentariness of individual identity and experience, within a social totality that is always looming and yet never there in one place at one time. The graphic-novel autobiographical subject is always both subject and object. A product of late capitalism, the graphic-novel autobiography is instinctively attuned to its lived reality.
This class also introduces key concepts and terms in the field of biography/ autobiography studies and comics/graphic-novel studies. Readings and class discussions will hone your critical vocabulary as you respond to classmates’ work and reflect upon your own.
Class sessions will alternate between lectures + discussion, and workshops in which you and your peers respond to each other’s writing. Each of the class discussions will focus on the conceptual and ethical questions raised by the graphic-novel autobiography:
When does a particular life merit an autobiography? Does your life have to be exceptional or can you write about the banal minutiae that consume your everyday life? If it is always about exceptional people, who counts as exceptional? If it is about ordinary people, what makes them ordinary? How is ordinariness or extraordinariness realized aesthetically, on the level of form? The genre of the graphic-novel autobiography seems to be drawn to violent or traumatic episodes. What occasions its irreverent and experimental tone? What are the literary and narrative strategies that strengthen or undermine its claim to truth and authenticity? Does the graphic-novel medium enable specific forms of oppositional, social critique?
This course has a Writing Intensive (W) Focus designation. It uses writing to promote the learning of course materials and provides interaction between the instructor and students while students do assigned writing. Written assignments contribute significantly to each student’s course grade. The class requires students to do a substantial amount of writing—a minimum of 4,000 words, or about 16 pages. To allow for meaningful professor-student interaction on each student’s writing, the class is restricted to 15 students.
This course also has a Contemporary Ethical Issues (E) Focus designation. Contemporary ethical issues are fully integrated into the main course material and will constitute at least 30% of the content. At least 8 hours of class time will be spent discussing ethical issues. Through the use of lectures, discussions and assignments, students will develop basic competency in recognizing and analyzing ethical issues; responsibly deliberating on ethical issues; and making ethically determined judgments.
Assignments include weekly quizzes, an oral group presentation, an ethics-focused short essay, and a personal essay or graphic narrative.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this class you should be able to
- Write reflective and coherent essays on the graphic-novel autobiography
- Undertake disciplined revision of your writing in response to constructive criticism
- Articulate constructive critical responses to your classmates’ writings
- Demonstrate familiarity with the vocabulary used to analyze comics and graphic novels
- Demonstrate an ability to employ the key concepts and terminology of biography/autobiography studies in the analysis of autobiographical texts
- Demonstrate an ability to identify the ethical issues that arise in connection with creating and consuming autobiographical texts
- Demonstrate a capacity to apply relevant frameworks for ethical deliberation to make judgments regarding the ethical issues intrinsic to the graphic-novel autobiography, as well as those pertaining to the content of specific the graphic-novel-autobiography narratives
- Employ online text-editing and commenting tools effectively
Readings:
Art Speigelman (1980), Maus I
Joe Sacco (1993), Palestine
Terry Zwigoff (1994), Crumb (120 mins)
Marjane Satrapi (2000), Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Alison Bechdel (2006), Fun Home
Junji Ito (2008), Junji Ito’s Cat Diary
Julia Wertz (2012), “The Infinite Wait” (pdf) (Laulima)