Week Seven: Maus and the Legitimization of the Graphic Novel

Cover of Maus by Art Spiegelman

The assignment for this week is to read Maus and to post an extended response on your blog. This is required reading for all students in the class. Maus is the watershed work that brought the graphic novel into the mainstream of the literary marketplace. It was reviewed by book reviewers from major newspapers and magazines, it was sold primarily in bookstores and not comic book shops, it was embraced by teachers who put it on reading lists. This constitutes the process of legitimization which, in this case, helped to create the new literary genre of the graphic novel. Spiegelman's work is representative of the movement from underground comics to literary or "art" comics. This new generation of comics looked to tell longer stories to adult readers on a wide range of topics. These topics included subjects traditionally associated with the novel such as the experience of time or the nature of memory. The unique way that the graphic novel addresses such subjects is to the heart of what we are discussing in this course.

Here is a link to an interview published a few days ago of Art Spiegelman in The Guardian.

If you have read Maus recently than you can read something else this week.  Alternatives are listed on the Activity Page. In class we will watch the entirety of Barefoot Gen a feature length animation .

Click here to go directly to the Activity Page for this Week

Post for the Midterm

Midnight, Friday Oct. 23 is the deadline for posting all your work before Mid-term grades.  I will be reading your bogs and assigning letter grades this weekend.  Before Friday night please post on anything you have read or viewed for this semester.  To complete your preparation for mid-term evaluation please post as the most recent addition to your blog, a post that counts all your points accumulated so far this semester.  Relate the number of points you feel you have earned from your reading and viewing.  List a point for every zoom class you attended, list any extra points (for example points earned by cosplay) and please list the number of classes you have missed so far.  I will then read your blog and see if I agree with your point count based on what I read that you have posted.  I will then post a letter grade for you which will be released at the mid-term and which represents the grade that, if you continue at the current rate of reading and writing, you should achieve by the end of the course.  

Email me with any questions.