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Instructors: Dr. Jochen Ecke
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.410
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
8,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: ELC 410
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
We are going to use the digital platform OLAT to manage our class online. To join the digital class, you need to log onto OLAT at least once. Please go to:
https://olat.vcrp.de
Choose Mainz university as your server.
Then log on to OLAT using your university email account (!) and password. It is mandatory to use your university account. For legal reasons, I will not be able to accept accounts with private email addresses. After you have logged on, I will add you to the OLAT class during the first week of the semester.
Contents:
"Make it new!", Ezra Pound demanded of art in 1934 - this has been the rallying cry of all artistic movements since Romanticism. But what is the new and innovative in art? How can we conceptualise and grasp it? In this course, we will consider the notions of innovation and the new in narrative arts at the example of the so-called "British Invasion of American Comics" - a loose movement of British comics writers and artists that entered the US comics mainstream in the 1980s and supposedly revolutionised the medium. Together, we will first have a look at perfectly ordinary US comics from the 1980s, based on a course pack that I will provide. By taking a closer look at the narrative conventions and norms that these comics exhibit, we will define "normal" narration in US comics of the 1970s and 1980s. This set of norms and conventions will then provide valuable grounds for comparison with some of the key works of the British Invasion (see the list below). However, it is not the aim of this course to focus narrowly on comic books: on the one hand, you will acquire a basic set of transmedial narratological categories for analysis that should be helpful throughout your studies. On the other hand, we will seek to isolate different types of innovation that will hold water for other media such as the novel, too.
Recommended reading list:
Your course instructor will provide the comic books for the survey of normal narration. In addition to this, you will need to buy and read the following texts:
- Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. NY: DC Comics, 2014 [/19861987]. (or any later edition)
- Moore, Alan and Steve Bissette. Saga of the Swamp Thing. Book 1. NY: DC Comics, 2014 [1984]. (or any later edition)
- Morrison, Grant and Frank Quitely. Flex Mentallo. Man of Muscle Mystery. NY: DC Comics/Vertigo, 2014 [1996]. (or any later edition)
- Ennis, Garth and Steve Dillon. Preacher. Book One. NY: DC Comics/Vertigo, 2013 [1995]. (or any later edition)
PLEASE BE ADVISED BEFORE YOU SIGN UP FOR THE COURSE: comics books are - unfortunately - rather costly. Sharing copies with your fellow students is one possibility to soften the financial blow somewhat. Digital versions are slightly less expensive, and you are very welcome to use them.
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