Alexis Kellner Becker
Junior Tutorial Syllabus
The Illustrated Book from the Middle Ages Onward
This tutorial looks closely at a selection of illustrated books, from medieval picture bibles
to contemporary graphic novels. Our aim is to interrogate and analyze the different kinds
of work pictures do in books, while trying to figure out what kind of story—if any—the
history of book illustrations can tell and/or show us.
Requirements:
1. Attendance and active participation.
2. Attendance at three general meetings for the junior tutorials over the course of the
semester.
3. Regular class presentations.
4. Completion of several small written assignments to prepare for the junior paper.
5. A work of graphic criticism in visual-verbal form due Tuesday, October 14.
6. 2-page paper prospectus, with annotated bibliography of 8-10 sources, due
Friday, October 24.
7. Research paper of 20-25 pages, with draft submitted a month before paper due
date. Full draft due Tuesday, November 11. Junior essay due Tuesday,
December 9. One copy to me, one copy to the English department.
Week 1
Introduction.
What is the relationship between medieval illuminated manuscripts and contemporary
comics and graphic novels? Case study: banderoles and speech bubbles. Look at picture
bibles.
Readings:
John Lowden, “The Beginnings of Bible Illustration,” in Imaging the Early Medieval
Bible, ed. John Williams (1999).
Art Spiegelman, “A Day at the Circuits,” from Breakdowns: portrait of the artist as a
young %@*)!
Week 2
Medieval secular illustration: The Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales
Readings:
Read the description of the Nun’s Priest in the General Prologue of the
Canterbury Tales and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale (in any edition of The Canterbury
Tales). Elizabeth Scala, “Seeing red: The Ellesmere iconography of Chaucer’s
Nun’s Priest,” Word and Image 26.4 (2010).
Marginalia and subversive illustration
Reading:
Selections from Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval
Art (2004).
Houghton visit
Week 3
Early modern illustration, printing by the infernal method
Reading:
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Explore Blake Archive.
J. Hillis Miller, “Digital Blake,” in The Seeming and the Seen: Essays in Modern
Visual and Literary Culture (2006).
The illustrated novel.
Each student presents on illustrated 19th century novel of their choice.
Week 4
Comic strips
Readings:
Krazy Kat, Peanuts
e.e. cummings, “A Foreward to Krazy,” originally published in the Sewanee
Review (1946)
Umberto Eco, “On ‘Peanuts’ and ‘Krazy Kat,’” New York Review of Books
(1985).
Eyal Amiran, “George Herriman’s Black Sentence: The Legibility of Race in
Krazy Kat,” Mosaic 33.3 (2000).
This week: Library research visit with Laura Farwell-Blake.
“Mock Topic” Assignment
Week 5
Comic books and other ways of doing comics
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993).
Superman handout
R. Crumb, comix, and the alternative comics movement handout
Week 6
The autobioGRAPHICal novel
Readings:
Art Spiegelman, Metamaus
Individual presentations of scholarship on Maus.
Week 7
Graphic autobiography cont’d
Readings:
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
Hillary Chute, Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics:
Introduction and ch. 5, “Animating an Archive: Repetition and
Regeneration in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” (2010)
Robyn Warhol, “The Space Between: A Narrative Approach to Alison Bechdel’s
Fun Home,” College Literature (2011).
Week 8
Graphic novel cont’d
Readings:
Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.
Essays from The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking (2010).
Douglas Wolk, “Why Does Chris Ware Hate Fun?” in Reading Comics: How
Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean (2007).
Week 9
Open (assigned text TBD, based on student interests)
Second hour: workshop drafts.
Week 10
Narrative image beyond the book: film and television.
Film screening (TBD)
Reading: W.J.T. Mitchell, ch. 1 (pp. 11-83) of Picture Theory (1995).
Week 11
Medieval churches and pictorial programs.
Web comics. Please prepare a text and distribute it to your classmates in advance of class;
be prepared to teach it.
Week 12
Presentations on research projects.