Hello!

Welcome to English 655: Comics and Graphic Narrative with Professor Monica Chiu!

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"Reading happens in all directions," says Hilary Chute about the study of comics and graphic narrative. In this course, students will learn to read images and texts from all directions: up, down, horizontally, vertically, across panels and jacket flaps, in seriality and on the internet. Comics' ability to represent both trauma and the trivial takes students from newspaper funnies to the Holocaust, from superheroes in mid-century floppies to Underground comix and current autobiographical comics, comics journalism, comics history, and fiction.

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This website is designed to be a helpful, informative resource to make analyzing graphic narratives as easy as possible. During the course, you will learn an assortment of comics terminology that will make it easier to look at a graphic narrative in the same way you look at other forms of text-based literature.

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Please click on each of the menu tabs above to learn more about some of the ways to read a comic, and to learn more about the selection of works that were assigned during the Fall 2023 curriculum.