Graphic Novels: Understanding Underground Comics and Manga

Faculty Advisor: Award-winning novelist; Lecturer, American University of Armenia

Program Start Time: TBD (meetings will take place for around one hour per week)

Research Program Introduction

This program combines cultural approaches to investigate one of the most influential and rapidly growing forms of literature: graphic novels. Popular, yet historically considered lowbrow, graphic novels are now critically recognized as an important form of the creative arts. The graphic novel represents an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge, combining visual arts, journalism, fiction, and memoir. 

Students will develop the critical skills necessary to read, understand, write, and produce graphic narratives. They will read seminal works that define the genre in a number of countries, such as Japan, France, and the United States, with a particular focus on underground comics and manga. Readings will include contemporary works by writers and artists. Students will read and discuss selections from comic history and have the opportunity to create a graphic narrative. Alternatively, students will write a research paper about the genre of graphic novels.  

Possible Topics For Final Project

• Analyze "MAUS" by Spiegelman: Postmodern ethnography or not?

• Explore "A Game of Swallows" by Abirached: Humanist traits?

• Compare comic vocabulary and time passage

• Compare manga time passage to Western comics

• Discuss feminist values in "The Song of Aglae"

• Study "Understanding Comics" chapters on comic vocabulary

• Analyze "The Arab of the Future" by Sattouff: Orientalism?

• Other professor-approved topics in this subject area that you are interested in

Standards of Assessment

To excel, students must read the assigned comics and be engaged in class. They must demonstrate excellent preparedness by always sharing their responses to the graphic novels and readings. They must identify core ideas from the course materials and produce either a thoughtful, evocative, and compelling graphic narrative (images and dialogues) of up to 12 panels and/or a research paper on the topic. Drawing is not a requirement for this program. Students can use digital apps of their choice, such as Canva, to create their graphic narratives.

Program Detail

• Cohort size: 3 to 5 students

• Duration: 12 weeks

• Workload: Around 4 to 5 hours per week (including class and homework time)

• Target students: 9 to 12th graders interested in comic history, graphic novels, visual arts, journalism, fiction, or other related fields.