Postgraduate Course: The Graphic Novel: Narrative in Sequential Art (PG Version) (ENLI11230)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores the graphic novel form as an effective and impactful mode of intermedial storytelling. From illustrated memoirs of asylum, and to trans comics of teen superheroes, our course texts reflect the graphic novel's long history of making visible stories deemed 'unnarratable' in mainstream dominant discourse. Through a diverse reading list spanning a wide range of cultural contexts from nineteenth-century Russia to the Ivory Coast of the 1970s, the course probes how the graphic novel form can speak to an array of urgent political crises and social injustices, including war, colonialism, rape culture, institutional racism, gendered violence, ecological devastation, the exploitation of labour, and anti-immigrant discrimination. The course is ordered by genre, meaning that, whether through the figure of the detective, the superhero, the worker or the handmaid, each week we look at a specific example of a prevalent genre in the graphic novel market and consider how these visual renderings can correspond to or challenge scholarly orthodoxies across Literary Studies more broadly. Drawing also on Adaptation, Film, Comics, Gender, Postcolonial, Environmental and Queer Studies, we work collaboratively to think about the kinds of bodies, affects and story-worlds emerging from that ever-evolving intersection between word and image which is uniquely enacted by the graphic novel form. |
| Course description |
Strong emphasis will be placed on the textual properties of the graphic novel course texts, and how words and images interact with one another on the page to create narrative meaning. Students will therefore be able to draw upon existing skills in textual analysis and critical thinking, and develop transferable, interdisciplinary skills in visual analysis and criticism. In addition, students will encounter new critical models on sequential art, focused around the potential of narrative drawing for creating unique stylistic effects and characterisation, and the way in which time, space, embodiment, identity and relationality are represented differently than in printed texts.
Indicative reading list for 2025/26
Aldama, Frederick Luis. Multicultural Comics: From Zap to Blue Beetle. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.
Baetens, Jan and Frey, Hugo. The Graphic Novel: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Grennan, Simon; La Cour, Erin; Spanjers, Rik (eds). Key Terms in Comics Studies. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
Grove, Laurence. Comics in French: The Bande Dessinée in Context. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. London: Routledge, 2013.
Iadonisi, Richard. Graphic History: Essays on Graphic Novels and/as History. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.
Petersen, Robert S. Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives. Brighton: Roundhouse, 2011.
Round, Julia and Punter, David. Gothic in comics and graphic novels: a critical approach. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2014.
Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge, 2016.
Tabacknick, Stephen Ely; Saltzman, Esther Bendit (eds). Drawn from the classics: essays on graphic adaptations of literary works. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2015.
Witek, Joseph. Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegman, and Harvey Pekar. London: University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students on LLC MSc programmes get first priority to this course. If you are not on an LLC programme, please let your administrator or the course administrator know you are interested in the course. Unauthorised enrolments will be removed. No auditors are permitted. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One coursework essay of 2,000 words (30%) [Linked to learning outcomes 1,2,3,4] |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Construct original, clear and coherent arguments about the graphic novel as a medium, using critical models from within literature and the visual arts
- Analyse the formal dimensions of graphic novels using recognised methods of literary criticism and sequential art criticism to substantiate and illustrate those arguments
- Evaluate established conventions within different subgenres of sequential art, and recognise (where appropriate) the ways in which individual graphic narratives depart from those conventions
- Defend their point of view on the above topics both verbally, in class discussions, and in written form
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Michelle Keown
Tel: (0131 6)50 6856
Email: michelle.keown@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Lina Gordyshevskaya
Tel:
Email: pgordysh@ed.ac.uk |
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