Academic

Comic Books in a Harvard Classroom

By propertyprof

Actually, in a lot of Harvard classrooms.  The Crimson has the story.  Here's a brief excerpt:

[C]omic books are beginning to secure a new place in academia, albeit an incipient one. In addition to their place in [Japanese Literature Class] ?Manga,? Dr. Katherine Stanton, who currently teaches a freshman seminar called ?American Splendor: Alternative American Comics,? includes graphic novels at the core of her curriculum.

According to Dr. Stanton, both professors and students have noticed the change in comic books, which has prompted them to read these works more closely. ?The quality of graphic narrative itself is better?there is simply more good stuff out there that?s worth our attention,? Stanton says. ?Our students? interest in comics and comic book form has also inspired us as teachers and scholars to pay more attention to the form. I think I?ve learned a lot from students for the last few years about why I should be paying attention to this medium.?

Kern, who has also noticed this growing intellectual interest, attributes the trend to a generational attention to visual-based media.

I don't know if comic books are particularly well-suited to explorations of state-power (what we used to call fascism) or not, but it seems that's a recurrent theme.  Take this statement from Anthony F. Davis, owner of Harvard Square?s cornerstone comic store ?Million Year Picnic?:

A lot of those writers of Moore?s generation were products of Thatcherism....When you think of ?V for Vendetta? or ?Watchmen,? they?re all about power. What do you do when you have great power? Even when you?re thinking about using it for the best of reasons, how close do you come to Fascism when attempting to implement that?

And that makes me think of the very effective cartoon adaptation of The Road to Serfdom.  When, I wonder, will law reviews take up William Alceves' call to enter the cartoon era?

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).