Tag: comics

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Multicultural American Literature Syllabus 2022

Over the past few years, I have taught numerous multicultural American literature courses, at various levels from sophomore to graduate. This semester, the texts center around the question, “Who is American?” Unlike previous semesters, I have read or taught these texts before, so none are really new to me. However, the overarching theme and the focus of the texts has provided me with ways … Read More Multicultural American Literature Syllabus 2022

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Self-Interest and The Common Good in “Suicide Squad” #4

Over the course of this blog, I’ve written, extensively, about the ways that comics address political and social issues. The “preachies” in EC Comics are perhaps the most obvious examples of this. Today, I want to look at May 1987’s Suicide Squad #4 written by John Ostrander and drawn by Luke McDonnell. “William Hell’s Overture” is a self-contained story early Ostrander’s Suicide Squad run, … Read More Self-Interest and The Common Good in “Suicide Squad” #4

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The Unproportionable Distribution of Shame: Part II

Last post, I looked at the feeling of shame that incarcerated Japanese and Japanese Americans felt after the end of World War II. Today, I want to expand that conversation some by looking at the ways that Toufic El Rassi discusses the ways that feelings of unwarranted shame weighed down on him in Arab in America. In each text, it is not the oppressor … Read More The Unproportionable Distribution of Shame: Part II

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Emotions in the Gutter: Part II

Last post, I started discussing the separation of illustrations into multiple panels in works such as March and They Called Us Enemy. Today, I want to continue that discussion by looking at some more examples in Takei’s graphic memoir and the ways that Harmony Becker separates larger images into multiple panels to highlight multiple thematic aspects of the narrative, notably the generational trauma that … Read More Emotions in the Gutter: Part II

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The Emotions in the Gutter

Recently, a colleague asked me to participate in a reading with him. He read selection from his latest poetry collection, and during the Q&A following our readings, he spoke about the ways that he constructed some of the poems he read. During his response, he began to speak about a poem he didn’t read, “Nocturne,” a poem which deals with death, intimacy, and loss. … Read More The Emotions in the Gutter