COR 3500 ANALYZING THE GRAPHIC NOVEL — THE MULTIPLE LANGUAGES OF COMICS
How do comics communicate? In this course, we will explore the vast ways comics have been used to communicate cultural, ecological, scientific, historical, and political realities since they first appeared in 1843. With a focus on non-fiction comics, you will learn:
· how comics engage multiple disciplines—global/cultural histories, visual/aesthetics studies, gender/sexuality, economics, STEM education, multimodal literacies, comics making/theory;
· how comics have been used to creatively represent reality and make arguments about the various realities people experience around the world;
· how the comics form (panels, gutter, layout, etc.) impacts the foundations of comics theory; and finally,
· how you can wield comics to creatively engage your field—for example, how can biology students use visual sequences to show the “narratives” of sequoia trees, or worker bees, or coyotes in a local ecosystem?
No drawing skills required—this course is open to curious students across all disciplines at Elon.
Prerequisite
Open to students in the third or fourth year of study.
Course Types
Core Integrative Seminar