Allgemeine Informationen

Veranstaltungsart

Seminar

Semester

WiSe 2012/13

ECTS-Punkte

Veranstaltungsnummer

7.123501

Details

Link zur Veranstaltung in StudIP

Dozent*innen

• Dr. phil. Meike Pentrel, M.A.
• Jens Bonk-Wiltfang, M.A.

Beschreibung

Comic strips, comic books and graphic novels all combine a visual and a verbal side to transport a narrative. Especially in the US, Japan and Europe, comic books have a long cultural history, albeit very different ones. They have found their way out of the nerdy specialty store decades ago. Comics are much more than “cute pictures” for children and childish adults; they are not inherently dumbed down or meaningless. Instead, comics deal with all the issues literature, film or TV tackle, and additionally allow for a unique reading experience, that cannot be emulated by any other medium.
From a linguistic viewpoint the language used in comic books deserves special attention since it is supported by the surrounding image - or the other way around. This leads to the question if and how language used in comics differs from other language uses. How the narrative works when no words are on the page presents a further mystery worth investigating. For quite some time now researchers (e.g. in the realm of cognition) follow the idea of structured sequential images forming a “visual language” functioning very much like e.g. spoken language.

Combining literary and cultural theories and interpretation with linguistic models and methods, such as semiotics, semantics or syntax, this i-module will focus on the interdependence of culture, visual representation, sequentiality, seriality and language in comics such as The Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Batman (and other super-hero books), as well as in current serials published by independent publishers.

We would like the seminar to conclude with a weekend symposium, which will give selected students the opportunity to present their research to a public audience (no worries, it doesn't hurt!).

Students are asked to purchase Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1994, William Morrow Paperbacks) as an introduction to how comics work and how we read them. Please read the introduction and chapter one on the definition and origin of comics.
Regularly check the seminar page on StudIP for further announcements! Excelsior!

Studienbereiche

• Anglistik; Englisch > Sprachwissenschaft > Bachelor
• Europäische Studien > Bachelor-Studiengang > Nebenfach Kulturwissenschaft / Anglistik
• Anglistik; Englisch > Kulturwissenschaft > Bachelor
• Anglistik; Englisch > Literaturwissenschaft > Bachelor

Modulzuordnungen der Veranstaltung

• Bachelor of Arts Europäische Studien > ANG-I - Integration of Linguistics, Literary and Cultural Studies