ENGL147: Visual Narrative considers the media history and theories of visual storytelling, with a particular emphasis on comics, graphic novels, web comics, interactive comics, and motion comics.
Unit topics include:
Defining Visual Narrative
Vocabularies of Style
Medium and Design
Visualization and Mapping
Interaction and Media Adaptation
Theoretical readings include The Medium is the Massage (McCluhan and Fiore), Exercises in Style (Queneau), 99 Ways to Tell a Story (Matt Madden), Understanding Comics (McCloud), and selected essays on information visualization, infographics, and maps by Tufte, Manovich, Lima, and others.
Primary readings of visual narratives include Watchmen (Moore and Gibbons), In the Shadow of No Towers (Spiegelman), and Meanwhile (Shiga), as well as a selection of related adaptations into animation, web editions, posters, feature films, and interactive apps.
** This course will not address several forms of visual narrative media (including theatre, cinema, and video games), however students will develop skills in close reading media and theoretical vocabulary for approaching visual media in general.
Letter grade only. May be repeated for credit provided the letter designations are different. Maximum allowable units are 12, of which 8 can be applied to the major.
ENGL 147: Studies in historical and contemporary media systems including orality, writing, print electronic media (telegraph, phone, radio, film, TV video, satellite communications), and digital media (the Internet, word-processing, etc.) in their relation to literary or cultural expression. Example topics include Enlightenment media, modern literature, and graphic design, film and literature, twentieth century media theory.