Graphic Novels (217-0-70)

Topic

Global South Graphic Novels

Instructors

James Hodapp

Meeting Info

Northwestern Qatar Room 1-212: Mon, Wed 10:20AM - 12:00PM (AST)

Overview of class

While comics have come into their own as a legitimate visual art form accepted as "serious art" by academia, art curators, and cultural critics, within university curriculums they are still woefully underrepresented. This is doubly true for those from the Global South. In this course, we push back against this oversight to understand the immensely popular art form of Global South comics. We address why we study visual narratives from diverse cultural backgrounds from South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and minority communities in North America, Europe, and Oceania. We ask if the experience of colonialism and white supremacy are the only factors that bind these Global South locales or whether a more resilient solidarity is possible in studying comics from places that have traditionally been on the losing end of global power structures, whether colonialism or globalization. This course pairs a formalist approach that considers panel formats, speech bubbles, splash pages and other formal elements of the comic form with a Global South approach that centers non-western visual narrative forms to offer a broad introduction.

Registration Requirements

• Prerequisite: None


• Open for First-year students and sophomores


• Open for cross-registration

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: NUQ: Seats are reserved for Sophomore and Freshmen only.