Conversation with Rodney Barnes about “Killadelphia”

Category: history

For my “Monsters, Race, and Comics” class I’m teaching the first two volumes of Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander’s Killadelphia. Recently, I spoke with Barnes about the series. We talked about the ways that the gothic works as both a “politically conservative” for and as a revolutionary form, the role that history plays within the series, the ways that the powerful weaponize fear to … Read More Conversation with Rodney Barnes about “Killadelphia”

August 18, 2022 + american history, comics, history, image comics, jason shawn alexander, jupiter evans, killadelphia, rodney barnes, thomas jefferson

The Narratives of History in “Killadelphia”: Part II

by Matthew Teutsch

In my last post, I started looking at the differing perspectives we get of Jupiter’s history in Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander’s Killadelphia. Specifically, I began to examine Jupiter’s description of his past in juxtaposition to the perspectives of Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson. After killing Blake Scott on stage during a concert, Jupiter turns himself in to the police so he can infiltrate the … Read More The Narratives of History in “Killadelphia”: Part II

August 16, 2022 + american history, comics, history, image comics, jason shawn alexander, jupiter evans, killadelphia, rodney barnes, thomas jefferson

The Narratives of History in “Killadelphia” Part I

by Matthew Teutsch

This semester, in my “Monsters, Race, and Comics” course, I’m teaching the first two volumes of Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander’s Killadelphia. Recently, I just reread both volumes, which contain the first 12 issues of the series. There is a lot within these issues that, combined with everything else we read this semester, I want to explore with students. Specifically, I want to have … Read More The Narratives of History in “Killadelphia” Part I

August 2, 2022 + american history, fascism, history, nora krug, on tyranny twenty lessons for the twentieth century, politics, timothy snyder

Why we “read books”

by Matthew Teutsch

During our trip to Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Timothy Snyder and Nora Krug’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The book is part history book, as the “lessons from the twentieth century” indicates, a part guide to how to work to preserve democracy when confronted with fascism or totalitarianism. Multiple things stand out to … Read More Why we “read books”

July 22, 2022 + art, history, norman rockwell, ruby bridges

Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With”

by Matthew Teutsch

Last post, I started looking at how to use the OPTIC strategy to help students examine visual images, specifically I wrote about using OPTIC to examine Jacob Lawrence’s The Ordeal of Alice (1963). Today, I want to continue that discussion by looking at another image then briefly talking about how I would incorporate each of these images into my Lillian E. Smith Studies Course. … Read More Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With”

Interminable Rambling

Conversation with Rodney Barnes about “Killadelphia”

Category: history