GERM 202
German Comics
Last Offered Spring 2017
Division I Writing Skills
This course is not offered in the current catalog

The goal of this advanced course is to study language and culture through the exploration of German-language comics. Despite the boom in the production of comics since the reunification and the appearance of numerous talented artists in the German speaking world, German comics remain largely unknown and unrecognized abroad. This course seeks to introduce students to this rich, active genre and to deepen their understanding of it by allowing them to engage with its broad spectrum of subjects and styles. The course will address a variety of recent comics ranging from graphic novels by Tim Dinter, Line Hoven, Kati Rickenbach, and Olivia Vieweg to literary comics by Flix, Isabel Kreitz, as well as historical comics by Simon Schwartz, and Elke Steiner, not to forget German mangas Bloody Circus by Jürgen Seebeck! The course will also address a variety of genres such as humor with Der bewegte Mann by Ralf König, biography with Schiller by Horus, and autobiography with Smalltown Boy by Andreas Michalke, and Held by Flix. What are the recurrent themes in German comics? What kind of current political issues do these comics raise and what type of contemporary anxieties do they express? These are some of the questions the course seeks to answer. This course is conducted entirely in German.